Friendship From Which Hope Comes
by WritersMind15
Summary: Makoto Naegi is an average high school boy who has been invited to a prestigious school named Hope's Peak Academy, but soon finds himself trapped in the school with fifteen others and forced to participate in a killing game. (DR1 AU)
1. Welcome to Despair: Part 1

Makoto Naegi was a high schooler that everyday folk had in mind if asked what the average high school boy was like. And in truth, he was all right with that; he was too busy with other things such as the latest video games and TV shows, and his family and friends were enough to make his life good. He lived life as it went by; it was a life that others would not see in the news, and if that was how things would play out for him, then he could live with that.

And yet, he now stood in front of Hope's Peak Academy, which towered over all the nearby buildings in its little part of the city, and which one would not call an ordinary school.

Makoto had been amazed when his younger sister, Komaru, had told him that a letter from Hope's Peak Academy had been sent him. Apparently, the academy had entered him in a lottery, and he had been chosen for becoming a student of its 78th class. If he were to accept, he would join the class as its Ultimate Lucky Student.

Of all the things that he thought himself, "lucky" was not the first that came to mind. He thought himself dependable and supportive of his friends as one of his top qualities, and whatever luck he had came and went.

There were only two requirements to attend Hope's Peak Academy: that one already be attending high school, and that one be the best at what one did.

Makoto had at first thought to decline; after all, he was unsure whether his school life would fare well if he were known as the "lucky student". All the other students were worthy for the next class, according to the forum that Makoto looked at. Even one example was enough to show that it was their names that flooded the headlines, not his. He certainly felt unworthy to become a student of the same school as the Ultimates.

But in the end, he had accepted. Graduation, he heard, guaranteed him success in life, and who would say no to that? And a lot of guys would kill to be in the same class as some of them, so he thought that he might have that to appreciate as part of his future school life. And there was a chance that there were other ordinary students as well, which made him feel better, since he thought himself to have a pathetic personality.

Makoto, having been looking up at the school for a long while, looked back down at his acceptance letter. According to it, all incoming students were to meet at the main hall at 8 a.m. He had come here early and had seen no other students yet.

"I should head in already." He took in a deep breath of air. "Yeah... Everything's going to be all right. Hope's Peak Academy, here I come!"

Full of pluck, he went into the building and was now in the main hall. It was rather plain in appearance, though its cleanness gave off the impression that this truly was a school for the best.

_It doesn't look bad at all_, he thought. _It wouldn't hurt to look around before the meeting._

But not long after, he stopped when his sight turned warped and twisted. It was as if everything were being mixed together. Before he even tried to understand what was going on, everything went black, and he fell asleep.

* * *

**Prologue: Welcome to Despair**

"Ugh… Huh?"

Makoto woke up, finding himself sitting with his head down at a wooden desk. It seemed that he was in a classroom, but there were no others. For some reason, his body felt heavy; what had he done that made him feel that tired? He looked at his desk and found a cheap-looking pamphlet that said with shabby handwriting:

"Hey there, new kid! The next semester is about to start. Starting today, this school will be your entire world."

If this was an orientation guide, it looked nothing like the pamphlets that he would expect a high-ranking institution to have. This must be some kind of weird joke.

Makoto turned to his left and saw that the windows were covered with metal plates. Seeing that they were very thick and could not be removed, he wondered why they were there. And there was also the matter of the surveillance camera; he thought that it was to watch out for any suspicious activity, but still, its presence felt odd to him.

"8:20 a.m..." he said as he looked at the clock. "Drat. Have I truly slept that long? I've got to head to the main hall as soon as I can."

Once he had finished looking around the classroom he headed out the door and found himself in a hallway. The purple lighting only made things feel weirder and weirder, but for now, he had the main hall meeting to worry about. He made his way through the hall, passing by other doors that looked weird as well, and at last found the door to the main hall.

_Hope I haven't missed that much_, Makoto thought.

As soon as he headed in, he found himself in the same room as he had been before his weird blackout. There was, however, one great difference: the wall opposite to him was now covered by a great metal hatch. And he was not the only one in this room. There were a boy and a girl looking right at the hatch, neither of them appearing to have noticed him. The boy had black hair and wore a white uniform, and the girl had long dark blue hair and wore a light-colored school uniform.

"Uh, excuse me, but do you know what's going on?" Makoto asked.

Both turned around, surprise in the boy's red eyes and the girl's blue ones. Surprise grew in Makoto's eyes as well; the boy he did not know, but he had met the girl before, and now, she stood before him.

"Ah! You've awakened at last!" the boy said. Now that he had a closer look at him, Makoto found the boy's white military-style uniform remarkable, to say the least. It made him look as if he were a commander of some kind, keen to see obedience in his underlings.

"Huh?" Makoto said. "How do you know I was sleeping?"

"Well, all the others who came here for the meeting said they had fallen asleep for some reason," he explained. "I simply assumed your explanation was the same as theirs."

"And if I remember correctly, some of the others said they'd found you asleep," the girl added, her light skin looking fully clean and flawless. "You didn't wake up, so they just left you alone."

So there were others here besides him and the white-suited boy here, and a meeting had been meant to be held here. It was good to know that he was at the right place. But that all of them had happened to fall asleep after coming here confused Makoto even more.

"Anyway, you're late!" the boy screamed. "It's way past 8 o'clock already!"

His screaming caught Makoto off-guard, and the boy tapped repeatedly at the watch on his left wrist, peeved.

"S-Sorry about that," he said. "Are you students here as well?"

"That's right!" the girl answered, beaming. "I'm Sayaka Maizono, the Ultimate Pop Sensation!"

"And I am Kiyotaka Ishimaru, the Ultimate Moral Compass!" the boy said. "You can call me Taka, if you so like!"

So this was what Ultimates were like. Makoto remembered having read about Taka on the forums; apparently, he was a top honors student from a famous private school and had been part of the school's disciplinary committee. He seemed all right, though a bit annoying.

It was less surprising to see Sayaka, however. He had read about her online, and he had been more surprised to hear that she was now the lead singer of an idol group famous throughout the land. He had known that sooner or later he would see her again, but now that that time had come, nothing came into mind. Should he say that it had been so long since they had last met? Or should he ask her what she had been up to? It had seemed much simpler in his head.

"It's hard, I know," Sayaka said. "You've been waiting for this moment, and you feel bad that nothing's going the way you want it."

"H-Huh? Have you just read my mind?" Makoto asked.

"I'm psychic," she answered. For a moment, she looked as if she had meant that in earnest, but a few seconds later, she beamed at him. "Just kidding! I only have very good intuition, that's all."

_Even so, that's pretty sharp,_ he thought, wondering whether she had read that as well.

"Well, we two have introduced ourselves," Taka interrupted. "Now it's your turn to tell us who you are! Go on, don't be shy!"

Makoto introduced himself, after which Taka let out a hearty chuckle.

"Makoto Naegi! What a great name you have!" Taka said. "But remember! You must work as hard as you can every day to keep your name's worth! Even if you are the Ultimate Lucky Student, your life henceforth cannot be supported by luck alone! _Do you understand?_"

Not wanting to hear more screaming, Makoto nodded. He certainly seemed like someone who was always concerned about others' business, if that helped keep things in order.

But this was enough chatting for now. It was time to find out what was going on.

"So what's up with the hatch?" Makoto asked.

Taka sighed. "I don't know. But it definitely wasn't here when I came here earlier!"

"Same for me!" Sayaka said. "I can't think of any reason why something like this is here!"

There were also cameras above them, strange machinery that looked like guns hanging below them. Looking at them gave Makoto the impression that they were living in some kind of oppressive regime, but this was only a school. Even the most elite schools, he was sure, would not have this as a defense.

"Earlier, you said that there were others here as well," Makoto continued. "Have they gone home or something?"

"Goodness, no!" Taka answered, showing a look of horror upon thinking of such a possibility. "They left to look around the school a bit more, when no one came to greet us!"

"And how many are there?"

"Thirteen, I think," Sayaka said, glancing a bit upwards. "All of us but you came here earlier."

"I told them to stay here, since that is what we're supposed to do!" Taka said, now appearing a bit more upset. "But they were all insistent on not standing around here! And surely you won't go against the instructions!"

Unluckily, for Taka, Makoto had become curious as to who his other classmates were and what the rest of the school was like. To stand here idly as part of instructions seemed silly and unproductive now.

"Uh, sorry, but I think I'll go ahead and take a look around," Makoto said. "Don't worry, though. I'll be back!"

While Sayaka simply nodded and let out a small smile, Taka looked back at him with a mix of dejection and anger, his red eyes shedding a few tears, his teeth and fists clenched. Nonetheless, he did not protest as Makoto left the main hall.

_This is all too weird…_ Makoto thought. _This isn't what I had in mind for my first day._

He headed to the left and saw a pair of pink doors nearby. According to the sign, it was the nurse's office, and he could hear someone shuffling through something from inside. Curious, he headed in.

The room looked like something out of a hospital. There were three beds put at one side, medical equipment strewn throughout the room. There were a few cabinets at the wall opposite to him, containing what he guessed to be medicine. There were two others in the room as well. One was a girl with strawberry-blond pigtails, and she wore a black jacket along with a white tie and a red skirt. She and another girl were standing by the cabinets, the former standing by while the latter searched through one cabinet.

"Oh, what have we here?" the strawberry-blonde girl said upon noticing Makoto. She walked toward him, grinning. "Aren't you, like, that guy that was found sleeping?"

"Yes, I believe so." The other was a black-haired girl who had a few freckles on her face and wore only a brown suit, which gave her an appearance as plain as Makoto's. Compared to the girl by her, she looked much less outgoing and cheerful, but Makoto could not help but think her alluring for some reason. "Brown hair, green hoodie… He fits the description."

"So then you're, like, one of my new classmates, aren't you?" the first girl said, speaking with a playful tone. "You don't seem too bad a guy, though your fashion sense is, like, totally plain and _boring._"

Though her comment stung him a bit, he nevertheless tried not to be bothered by it, and so introduced himself, hoping to make a good impression on this girl.

"I'm, like, totally glad to meet you!" she said. "My name's Junko Enoshima, and I'm the Ultimate Fashionista!"

Makoto had recognized her not long after he had seen her. She looked just as she did in her magazine covers, so at least he was now sure that those photographs did not lie about her prettiness. She admittedly looked cute, what with her bunny hairpin and her big red-and-white bow, though her rather squeaky voice would take some time to get used to.

"I'm Mukuro Ikusaba," the other girl said. "I'm the Ultimate Soldier."

"U-Ultimate _Soldier_?" Makoto said.

"She once worked with some mercenary group," Junko said, which surprised him with how casual her tone was. "But that's all in the past. Right now, she's just like the rest of us! Believe it or not, she's my older twin sis!"

"R-Really, now…" Makoto had many more questions that he would like to ask Mukuro, but he sensed that now was not the time.

"So what are you two doing here?" Makoto asked.

"Well, we've been looking around the place," Junko answered, "and it's, like, all right, I guess. I'm not sure this is even Hope's Peak Academy, though."

"All the windows are boarded up for some reason, after all," Mukuro added. "And not to mention the hatch in the main hall."

"And now, I'm stuck here waiting for Mukuro to be done with looking through the stuff here," Junko said, sounding somewhat like a whiner. "It's _so_ boring, I tell you."

"You shouldn't speak like that," Mukuro chided. "In this kind of situation, we should see what we can use as supplies."

Come to think of it, it had never occurred to Makoto that this place might not even be the school that he was supposed to attend. He had assumed that it was, since everything looked like a school, but there was a possibility that this was another place wholly, and if that was possible, then there was no telling what kind of dangers awaited him.

"Well, maybe everything will be explained sooner or later," Makoto said, hoping that Mukuro's carefulness would turn out to be unneeded. "Maybe we're only overthinking things."

"I sure hope so," Junko said. "If you're right, then let's, like, go out later and find clothes that'll make you look dazzling, all right?"

Though thinking that there was nothing wrong with his fashion sense, Makoto did like the thought of hanging out with the Ultimate Fashionista. Since she knew her stuff about fashion, maybe she could give him a few helpful pointers.

* * *

**Hello, everyone, and thank you for reading this! I've been wanting to write a fanfic that is a different version of DR1. ****Admittedly, this is also a way to keep me busy writing while I'm waiting for submissions for my SYOC to come (it'd be nice if you could check it out and see whether you're interested in it; I'd appreciate getting more submissions).**

**Anyway, the main difference is that in this story, there is a different mastermind; Junko Enoshima isn't the crazy girl that we all know her to be, so she has a somewhat different personality, one that matches more of how Mukuro depicts her. Also, the introduction is a bit different from the one in the game; it's more in line of the introductions in the later games, where all the characters are spread out throughout the area, which has the advantage of introducing us to the setting as well. Right now, it's only introductions of the main cast, but things will get a bit more exciting later.**


	2. Welcome to Despair: Part 2

Leaving Junko and Mukuro to their own devices, Makoto left the nurse's office and turned to the right. As he got nearer to the end of the hallway, he saw that the stairs were blocked by a metal gate, and that a man was standing nearby.

"Uh, excuse me?" Makoto said, after which the man turned toward him. The man had stubble on his chin, and his dark brown hair reminded Makoto of some kind of sea urchin. He wore three layers of shirts, the topmost being a green jacket, the second being an unbuttoned shirt, the bottommost a yellow shirt. He also wore brown fabric that covered his stomach, and had a big pair of black pants and a pair of sandals as well. _Unkempt _was the best word that Makoto had for him.

"Hey there! I almost didn't see you there!" the man said, looking much older, which suggested that he worked here or something like that. His tone also suggested easygoingness and perhaps carelessness. "I haven't seen you before. You're a student here, aren't you?"

"That's right," Makoto said. "You're, uh, not what I expected of a staff member."

"What, you talking about me?" The man let out a small chuckle. "You've got it all wrong, man. I'm a student here, too! I'm Yasuhiro Hagakure, the Ultimate Clairvoyant! Call me Hiro for short!"

Makoto had heard that the psychic community called him Supernova, a name that seemed unfitting now that he saw the real deal right before him. He had thought little about fortune telling, which he could not even begin to understand, but he still wondered whether there truly was any truth in fortune telling.

Right after Makoto introduced himself, Hiro sighed.

"Aw, man, I saw it, but it went away!" the fortune teller said.

"Saw what?" Makoto asked.

"A guardian angel with a crazy perm chasing after Bigfoot running off with a skyfish in its mouth!" he said confidently. "And that guardian angel is yours!"

"Wh-_What?_" Makoto looked at him dumbfoundedly. "You're not serious, are you?"

"Nah, I'm only kidding," he said. "But hey, let's go get some drinks later. I have much to tell you about the lost civilization of Lemuria!"

If this was the best that the psychic community had to offer, Makoto felt sure that he had missed out on nothing. But then something else came to mind.

"Wait, we're only in high school. I don't think we're old enough to drink."

"Oh, yeah, you don't know. Well, I guess it goes back to what you thought earlier, so I guess I might as well tell you. See, I'm actually 21," Hiro said. "I've been held back a few times, but it's a long story."

From his first impression, Makoto could already guess a few details of his story. Nonetheless, it was best to keep his mouth shut and stay on good terms with his classmates.

"Man, this whole thing is pretty wacky," Hiro said as he looked around. "My predictions said nothing about them going with a prison theme for the orientation!"

"Orientation?" Makoto looked askance at the fortune teller.

"Yeah, what else could it be?" he said carefreely. "These big schools do these crazy things all the time, you know, since they have a lot of money still lying around."

Makoto was unsure whether he wanted Hiro to be right about this. On one hand, it explained everything, but on the other hand, it meant that the school was crazier than he had thought, if this were how they spent their money. All of a sudden, staying at his old school seemed not such a bad idea after all.

Bidding Hiro goodbye, Makoto headed through the hallway to his right. According to the sign above it, the door at the end led to the gym.

The room, however, was only a small trophy room, the other set of doors leading to the gym,. In here was a display case showing off many awards, which fact itself was no surprise, given that the students who came here were Ultimates and were expected to win awards and other such achievements.

Two others were looking at the awards as well. One was a tan-skinned girl whose brown hair was wrapped in a curly ponytail. She wore a red tracksuit jacket over a white tank top and a pair of blue shorts. As far as appearances went, she looked like one of the less remarkable of the students whom he had met so far. The latter, despite what looks might suggest, was a woman. She had an incredibly big build, her muscles having ripped her school uniform. Her skin had been reddened greatly, and scars were on her face and her right shoulder. Bandages were wrapped on her forearms and calves. She stood with her arms crossed, her face showing calmness and patience. Her long white hair fell in many directions, untidy and unkempt.

"Impressive…" the latter said, her voice deep. "There truly is a worthy lot of students here."

The former glanced around and let out a small gasp upon seeing Makoto. "Oh, hey there! You're one of our classmates, right? I think the others said something about you."

At this point, Makoto grew curious as to which of the students had found him.

"That's right," he said meekly. "I'm Makoto Naegi, the Ultimate Lucky Student."

"Lucky Student, huh? Not what I expected you to be!" the tan girl said. "I'm Aoi Asahina, the Ultimate Swimming Pro! But my friends call me Hina! 'Sup?"

"And I am Sakura Ogami," the other girl said. "I am called the Ultimate Martial Artist."

Right off the bat, Makoto already liked the former more. She looked far more sociable and easier to approach, and he could not but admire her for having been breaking records in all her competitions since elementary school and having been chosen as for the Olympics. She was among the most talked about online, and for good reason.

As for Sakura, even without her title, Makoto knew that it would be a death wish to ask her whether she was truly a guy. Sakura had won a martial arts tournament in America and was said to have fought over 400 matches without losing any of them. She had the nickname of "Ogre", which was apparently a reference to another fighter, and one user on the forum had warned any incoming students to avoid her. Feeling her presence, Makoto could see why.

As soon as Makoto introduced himself, however, Sakura stepped toward him, and the next thing he knew, he found her poking and prodding at his body.

"I see… Your muscles are that of an extremely ordinary high school student," she said. "What a shame. If you were stronger, you'd be fit to be my training partner."

_Not really a shame for me_. But he dared not to say it aloud.

"Well, it's no great loss. There should be many others that meet my standards," Sakura said.

"I can join you later when it's time to play sports," Hina suggested. "I'll have you know, I've had experience in six different sports clubs! I'll be much better than, uh… Sorry, what's your name again?"

"Makoto Naegi."

"Oh, yeah! I knew it was something like that!"

"It _is_ that," he said, a bit peeved.

"I'll make sure to keep that in my brain! Makoto… Naegi… Makoto... Naegi…" She moved her finger across her palm as if she were writing something.

"Uh, what are you doing?"

"Don't you know? If you want to remember someone's name," she said, "you have to write it on your hand thrice!"

"I've never heard of such a thing." Makoto suspected that she would forget his name not long after.

"Neither have I," Sakura said. "That is a rather… intriguing habit."

"Oh, how do you spell your last name?" the swimmer asked him.

"It's how you say it: na-e-gi."

Makoto grew even more dumbfounded. What had she been writing earlier, then? At least she was outgoing and seemed fun to hang out with.

"Hey, Sakura, do you know whether there's a swimming pool here?" Hina asked. "Once this whole thing is settled, I want to go take a swim!"

"No, and in fact, I don't know anything about what exactly is in this school," she answered. "I was expecting that we'd look around as part of the orientation."

Come to think of it, Makoto knew nothing about the school, other than its elite status. It had never occurred to him to do some research on its facilities or even how it was organized, which fact was due to the hype from knowing that this school was where all these Ultimates went.

"And one more thing," Sakura said. "The gym's locked."

"Huh? It is? But why?"

"Maybe the ones in charge of here are preparing something?" Hina suggested.

Sure enough, the doors to the gym could not be opened, however much Makoto tried. Whatever could be going on in there? Whatever guesses he could come up, there was no one here who seemed to know the answer.

Seeing that there was nothing more to learn from the girls, Makoto let them be and headed back to the hallway, where Hiro was still lazing about. Passing by him, Makoto saw a room named "Store". Heading inside, he found himself in a small room that was nevertheless full of such sundry goods as dolls and hourglasses. To the left were a vending machine and a bin to put unwanted goods in. There were also suits of armor behind the counter, which looked rather out of place, even as decorations. Nonetheless, he was amazed that the store seemed to have much to offer him, should he want to buy anything.

He was not alone here as well. Looking with much awe at the items behind the counter was a rather big bespectacled man wearing an evenly big backpack. He wore a gray jacket over his white shirt and an orange tie that had a blue arrow design at the tip. It amazed him that the man could even walk around with his relatively tiny legs.

"Oh, wow… They truly have figures of Princess Piggles! How handy!" the man said, looking at the upper portions of the shelves at the back.

It was hearing his voice that made Makoto think him to be nothing more than a typical nerd. Nonetheless, it was best not to judge him on that basis alone, he thought. Makoto made himself known and introduced himself, after which the student rubbed his chin as if thinking hard about something.

"I see, I see…" The student adjusted his glasses, which were so small as to fit his small eyes. "Mr. Naegi, is it? I am Hifumi Yamada, also known as 'The Alpha and the Omega' and 'The Ultimate Fanfic Creator'. It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance."

"Uh, nice to meet you, too." Makoto was surprised that being good at making fanfiction was deemed a good enough way to join the school. For an elite school, the standards for what talents were acceptable seemed awfully broad. "You make, uh… fanfiction?"

"More precisely, I _draw_, Mr. Naegi. I do write a few works every now and then, but drawing's what bestows me my fame! If you still doubt me, I'll have you know that I once sold 10,000 copies of one of my fan comics at a school festival!"

"Wow. That's pretty impressive." Makoto had never sold anything in his life, so the fanfic creator must have had some good business skills to get that level of success.

"Though some mock me," he went on, "I care not for their words, for I, like Van Gogh, am an artist unappreciated in his time. But future readers will see my works' brilliance and deep meaning."

"Deep meaning?"

"Why we should give in to our base desires."

Makoto did his best not to let his face show any of his shock. Was this man aware of how ridiculous he sounded?

"Mr. Naegi, would you perhaps like some of my potato chips?" Hifumi asked, apparently unknowing of how off-putting he had sounded. "I have a few bags in my backpack."

"Ah, no, but thanks for offering," Makoto said. Despite his questionable works, Hifumi overall seemed like a swell guy who was simply a bit careless in how he showed others himself whenever talking about his hobbies.

Makoto left the store and saw another room nearby that he had not seen yet: the AV room. Unlike the store, where everything was strewn about with no particular order in mind, the AV room had nothing but desks at which one could watch a film. It was a place that he could hardly imagine anyone hanging out because of its looks; likelier, one would come here with one's friends to spend a few hours together.

What livened up the otherwise dull room's atmosphere, however, were two guys who appeared to be arguing with each other. One of them was an orange-haired man who wore a white blazer jacket over a shirt that at first looked blood-stained before Makoto saw that it was only part of the design. He had many accessories on him, such as a chain necklace and a safety pin that was bigger than it ought to be. The other was second to Sakura with respect to intimidating looks; he had a long brown pompadour, and around his eyes were dark lines, which made a face that spelled trouble. He looked like a typical bike gang member with his long dark overcoat, white shirt, and baggy pants.

"Hey, look, man, I'm just saying, your style won't get you anywhere," the former said. "You're not going to get any girls with that."

"Like I give a shit about running after girls like that!" the latter said back. "It's got nothing to do with me."

"Well, yeah, I'm sure you came to think that after your first try."

"Now listen here, you son of a bitch!"

The former opened his mouth, doubtless about to let out another insult, but then he appeared to notice Makoto for the first time and instead directed the other's attention to him.

"Whoa, you're the guy I found earlier!" the orange-haired guy said. "You all right, man?"

_Ah, so it was him_. At least that was one mystery solved.

"Yes, but I'm pretty confused as to what's going on," Makoto answered. "What are you guys doing?"

"Nothing. At least, I was doing nothing," the biker guy said. "Then this guy all of a sudden starts talking shit about me!"

"Look, I wasn't dissing you or anything!" the other said, though his face suggested that he felt not the least bit sorry about it. "I was just critiquing you, that's all."

"Like hell you were!"

"Uh, besides that," Makoto said, sensing that another argument would soon break out if he were to leave things be, "who are you two, anyway?"

"Ah, glad you asked!" The white-jacketed man flashed a smile. "The name's Leon Kuwata! I'm the Ultimate Baseball Star!"

Makoto recognized that name. Leon had played for the national high school champions as their cleanup hitter. But it amazed Makoto to see that the cleanup hitter was now the guy standing before him.

"You're the Ultimate Baseball Star?" Makoto said. "I thought you would have more of a… sporty-looking look to you when I saw in an online article a picture of you playing baseball."

"You saw that?" Leon now smiled anxiously at him. "Aw, man, I hate that picture! It doesn't fit me at all! I was forced to shave my head only because that's part of the national championship regulations, but now? I won't cut my hair or dye it back to normal! That was my baseball image, but I've given that up!"

_Given that up?_ That sparked Makoto's interest a bit.

"That's enough outta you," the biker interrupted, just as Leon appeared to get to the next part of his story. The baseballer said nothing in response, instead now looking at him with a hint of boredom. "This guy here doesn't want to spend the whole day hearing you talk about your life story or whatever.

"Anyway, the name's Mondo Owada. Nice to fucking meet you," he continued. "They call me the Ultimate Bike Gang Leader."

Makoto could not forget him when he had read that he was the second leader of the biggest biker gang in Japan. All the punks throughout the land admired him, and Makoto, for his own good, saw no need to challenge that title.

"Nice to meet you, too," Makoto could only say.

"Hell yeah," Mondo said. Makoto noted to be careful around him, after which he introduced himself to the two.

"What are you doing now?" Makoto asked.

"We're just looking around," Mondo answered, looking none too satisfied. "But we've been all around this place already. Nothing. Absolutely fucking nothing here gives us any answers."

"Yeah, pretty weird, don't you think?" Leon said. "I thought this might be some kind of weird ceremony thing, but so far, we seem to be the only ones here."

"This had better be one bad joke," Mondo said. "If it isn't, whoever's in charge of this is gonna get a fucking long beating."

"Even if it's the headmaster?" Makoto asked.

Mondo glared at him. "He's gotta be one hell of an idiot to treat us like this."

Judging by the fact that he had avoided answering the question, however, Makoto was sure that he would not make good on his threat.

Makoto left the AV room, seeing no more to gain from talking from the two. He at first walked toward the classrooms, in one of which he had woken up, but then he saw a hallway to his right that led to a red door, by which now stood a small girl. She had short light-brown hair and brown eyes, and her tender figure was dressed in a dark-green, white-collared jacket over a white shirt. Her hands were clasped together over her brown skirt, and she wore black socks that reached up to her knees. If she were a student here, she certainly looked much younger than the others.

"Where could it be?" she mumbled as she looked about.

"Are you looking for something?" Makoto asked.

The girl faced toward him and let out a small gasp. "A-Ah! I am, actually. Have you seen a phone anywhere?"

"Sorry, no," he said. And now that she had mentioned it, he had not checked his pockets at all to see whether his phone was still with him. He felt his pockets, hoping that it was still with him, but as misfortune would have it, it was gone.

"M-My phone's missing, too!" Makoto said. "And so is my wallet!"

Now this was getting stranger and stranger. If this had been simply a weird way to introduce him and the others to the school, then it would have been rather intrusive for the staff to take their personal belongings from them.

"Ah, well, I hope we can find our belongings soon," she said softly. "In any case, it's nice to meet you, too. I'm Chihiro Fujisaki, the Ultimate Programmer."

Makoto had seen that name pop up a lot on the forum. She was known for having made many innovative and advanced programs, but she also had a timid personality, which had made her look dear and charming to her many fans. For someone known as the Ultimate Programmer, Makoto thought that she would be more assertive.

"Sorry," she said. "I get a bit embarrassed whenever I introduce myself like this." Then she smiled happily. "Anyway, I hope we can get along."

"Same here. Nice to meet you," Makoto said. "I'm Makoto Naegi, the Ultimate Lucky Student."

"Huh?" she said, now surprised. "Maybe it's only my imagination, but have we met before?"

Makoto glanced at her and tried recalling whether she had gone to any of his classes or schools. "No, I don't think so. We've just met for the first time, which is why I said 'nice to meet you'."

"Oh, yeah, good point. Sorry…" Chihiro said, now weeping, which made Makoto feel as if he had just made a great mistake.

"Y-You don't have to apologize for that," he said.

"Oh, yeah…" She stopped weeping, but not long after, she once again looked like she was about to cry. "I-I'm really sorry."

"Huh? Why are you apologizing again?"

"Well, you seem upset. You must be angry at me, r-right?" she said, more tears coming out.

"Oh, no, not at all! I was only lost in thought about something,"

"Huh? Lost in thought?"

"Yeah! It had nothing to do with being upset or anything, I assure you." Makoto then gently patted her shoulder, hoping that that would calm her down.

Chihiro smiled, letting out a sigh of relief. "Oh, that's good. I was afraid that maybe you didn't like me. Thank you, Makoto!"

Makoto smiled back. Though a bit feeble, she seemed like someone who would make a good friend around here.

"Do you know what's behind this door?" Chihiro asked, pointing at the red door near her. "The others and I tried opening it earlier, but it wouldn't budge."

Makoto shook his head. Just like the gym, the room behind it was blocked off, as if someone were preparing something in there.

"Hmm... Maybe it's something meant to surprise us," she suggested. "Maybe this is some weird tradition the school has."

"But I haven't ever heard of a school that has such a tradition," Makoto said. "I mean, don't you think this is going a bit overboard?"

"O-Oh... when you put it that way, I guess that can't be right," she said sadly. "I hope everything will be explained sooner or later."

"Yeah, so do I."

Promising to let her know if he should happen to find her phone, Makoto headed back to the classrooms and checked the one that he had not been in yet.

The room was like the other, the desks lined up neatly, the windows boarded up. The only difference was the color of the wallpaper. But standing by one of the desks was a bespectacled girl looking anxiously at them. She wore a purple uniform that was typical for schoolgirls, her glasses big and round. Her dark purple hair was tied up in two braids, and she kept fidgeting with her fingers, eyeing her surroundings with great unease.

When Makoto greeted her, she looked at him with great unease.

"H-Hello," she said. "N-Not that you'll remember it, b-but my name's Toko Fukawa. I-I'm the… Ultimate Writing Prodigy."

Makoto had heard that she had started her literary career when she had written a novel at age 10, and two years ago, she had published a masterful love story called "So Lingers the Ocean".

_Wow… Can't imagine what it's like to be a bestselling writer and win all those big literary awards_, he thought. _I always imagined her to be more lovey-dovey, though._

"Wh-Why are you staring at me?" she asked, looking angry now. "D-Do you think me to be some kind of filthy creature?"

"What? No, I only thought—"

"I-I know what you 'only' thought!" she continued. "Y-You thought that I was the ugliest woman that you'd ever seen! A-And that's why you want to laugh at me!"

"N-No, that's not it at all!" Makoto was startled by how bad a first impression he had given her, when he had not even said anything to her yet.

"D-Don't bother trying to lie to me!" she said, pointing at him accusingly. "I can tell I'm right! If I weren't… W-Well, I know you don't want to keep looking at me. B-But I don't care. I'm used to it already…"

Makoto, astounded by how imaginative she was in her inferiority complex, thought it best to leave her be, lest he give her an even worse impression of himself. With how unsteady and standoffish she seemed, Makoto wondered whether she preferred to be alone. But given that she was the first person to appear greatly worried, he could not but want to make her feel at ease.

"Is something bothering you?"

She looked askance at him, as if what he had just said were a great insult. "Y-You're just asking me that to see h-how you can take a-advantage of me, aren't you?"

"What? No, I'm just—"

"S-Subjecting me to your h-horrendous questioning!" she finished, glaring at him. "L-Leave me alone. I-I'm all right by my lonesome h-here! I-If you want to talk to someone, y-you're better off with that p-pretentious girl at the d-dining hall..."

Whatever he might say to her, it was clear that she would knowingly take it the wrong way. But she had proven herself helpful, having raised his curiosity with her mentioning of a girl at the dining hall. Seeing no way to persuade her to ease her, and wanting to see whom she had referred to, he bade her goodbye and left the classroom.

Makoto headed toward the end of the hallway that had a sign that said "Despair Hotel". However childish it might sound, something about it nonetheless came off as eerie to him. His curiosity having risen, he headed through the hallway that awaited him. What was at the end was another intersection, but this time, the lighting was white and not at all creepy, and at the other end was a red hallway with several doors on each side.

He headed through the hallway, but was startled to see what was hung up on each door: a portrait of a student along with the name below it. The portrait, however, had been drawn such that it appeared like a character from a video game with a pixel art style. Makoto found a door with his name on it, and it had his portrait as well. If this were his room, then the school had a rather odd way of showing it. He tried opening his door, only to find it locked. Thinking that the key might be on him, he searched his pockets, but found nothing. Hopefully, there would be an explanation for this. In the meantime, seeing no one else in the hallways, he headed to the dining hall, expecting to see the last few students there.

At the dining hall were a few tables scattered throughout the room. They came with many chairs and were as plain as one could imagine them to be. Nearby was a counter that said what items were available for them. It was what he would expect from a dining hall. Sitting at separate tables were three students, all appearing to mind their own businesses.

The one sitting nearest him looked incredibly fantastic, even among the many students whom he had met. Her skin was utterly white, her eyes red, which gave her a vampiric appearance. Her outfit looked like a maid's, her blouse, skirt, and stockings black and decorated with white ribbons. Her black hair was tied into two long pigtails and came with a white bonnet.

"It is a pleasure to meet you." She spoke with an accent that sounded weirdly foreign. Makoto had a hard time describing it other than "European". Was she perhaps from France? "I am Celestia Ludenberg, the Ultimate Gambler."

"Celestia… Luden… what?" Makoto said.

"Ludenberg. But I ask that you call me Celeste," she said, her smile sweet and tender.

"Uh… You are Japanese, aren't you?" Makoto asked. She must be the one that Toko had called pretentious, and he could see why.

"Of course."

"If I may, could you please tell me your true name?" Makoto asked. There was no way that "Celestia Ludenberg" was her true name, if she truly was Japanese.

"Ahaha. What are you talking about? 'Celestia Ludenberg' _is_ my true name," she said.

Makoto knew that he would get nowhere with her on that matter, so he thought to drop it. At least she was polite about it, albeit a bit forceful.

_So this is the Ultimate Gambler_, he thought, amazed that she had apparently never lost a bet. According to rumors about her, the only true part of her was her love of gothic lolita clothes. Everything else was a well-knit dress of lies. She also apparently had won the King of Liars, the ultimate underground gambling tournament, as well as the other players' life savings.

"I look forward to working with you," she said, ever so smiling. Makoto hoped that he truly was as lucky as his talent said, if he should have to fight her in a game later.

The next-to-last one, though one of the plainest looking, was by far the most exceptional. He had short blond hair and a pair of white glasses over his blue eyes, and wore a black suit along with a white shirt, a green crossover tie and a silver pocket watch in one of his breast pockets. If he were only pretending, he would do a much better job than Celestia, but Makoto knew full well that nothing about his prestige was fake.

"My name is Byakuya Togami," he said coldly, not looking toward him. He appeared to be thinking deeply about something.

"Uh, nice to meet you," Makoto said. He waited for Byakuya to say more, but grew tired when he chose to stay silent instead. Despite the short introduction, Byakuya was incredibly influential, for he was the heir apparent to his family's great financial conglomerate. He had already started doing his own business operations, and so his personal assets were far from nothing to scoff at. He did not even need to say that he was called the Ultimate Affluent Progeny.

"How long do you plan to look at me?" he asked, arms crossed. "I'm done talking to you. Go talk to someone else already."

"But—"

"Do your ears not work? I told you to talk to someone else," he said coldly, frowning at him.

Makoto knew that Byakuya would never see him as a fellow peer, even if they were in the same class, but it had still been worth a try to talk to the man. But now it was certain that the sayings about him were true: he truly looked down on anyone who would not seem like a fitting member in his circles, and there were few limits to the bluntness and harshness in his words. At least Celeste, with her high-class affectation, was friendly to him, even if she was now chuckling at him.

The last one appeared to be among the group's oddest. She had pale skin and purple eyes, and her long light-purple hair flowed behind her, only a small part of it being tied into a braid. She wore a dark-purple jacket over a white blouse and a brown tie. She also wore a short dark skirt and a pair of boots that reached up to her knees. When Makoto approached her, she said nothing, looking at no particular place.

"Uh, what's your name?" Makoto asked after a few seconds.

"Kyoko Kirigiri," she said.

Makoto waited for her to continue, but she stayed silent. She definitely was a mystery; he had seen nothing about her on the forum. Could she be an ordinary student like him?

"So, uh, aren't you going to tell us why you're here?" Makoto asked.

"What is that supposed to mean?" she asked.

"Well, if you've been invited to this school," he answered, "then doesn't that mean that you're the best at something? What Ultimate are you?"

She waited a few more seconds before answering.

"Did you not ask Byakuya what his talent was?" she said.

"Well, no, but I already knew that he was the Ultimate Affluent Progeny," Makoto explained. "But I don't know what yours is, so could you please tell me?"

But his answer did not spark any reaction within her, as far as he could tell.

"And why should I tell you?"

"Huh? I guess you don't have to tell me, but…"

"No, I don't have to tell you, so I won't."

Makoto quickly saw that she would not give him any answers about herself. Maybe it was best that he try again later.

"Do not bother speaking to her any further about it," Celeste said. "She has given each of us the same answer. It is rather… strange, don't you think?"

Byakuya said nothing, but from the way he glanced at Kyoko, Makoto could tell that he thought likewise. And admittedly, her refusal to tell them what her talent was only made Makoto more curious about her. And it was only natural; she was the only one about whom he knew nothing. Every classmate he had heard of or read about on the forums, but Kyoko Kirigiri was an utter enigma to him.

Just as Makoto was about to say something, however, the school bell rang, and the monitor in the main hall turned on. It showed nothing but static at first, but then a shadowy figure appeared, his features hard to make out.

"Ahem, ahem! Testing, testing! Mike check, one two! This is a test of the school broadcasting system!"

The voice sounded childish, playful, and already tiring to listen to, but Makoto could only grow anxious at who the speaker was, given the lack of concern in his voice.

"Am I on? Can everyone hear me? Okay, well then…! Ahh, to all incoming students! I would like to begin the entrance ceremony... right now! Please make your way to the gymnasium at your earliest convenience. … That's all. I'll be waiting!"

The TV shut off, and everyone was silent at first.

"Hmph. Perhaps this charade will be explained to us at last." It was Byakuya that broke the silence. "I have many things to say to the headmaster, especially regarding his lack of professionalism in his announcement."

"Are you saying that was the headmaster?" Makoto said. He was at least somewhat relieved that the mystery of whatever was in the gym would be resolved at last, but the voice from the speaker had unnerved him greatly.

"It could very well have been a staff member," Celeste said, looking somewhat bored.

"With the speaker's tone, I highly doubt so," Kyoko said. "And staying here won't give us any answers. For now, we should head over to the gym."

* * *

**It's pretty funny that Yasuhiro says that he's 21 in the English version, even though he says that he's 20 in the original. It's pretty obvious that it's due to the differences in drinking age in Japan and America, but even then, it's pretty clear that this game takes place in Japan, so there truly wasn't any need to change it at all. Nevertheless, I'm sticking with 21 for this, since I'll be using the English version as a reference. Also, there likely was a better name for Hifumi's talent than "Ultimate Fanfic Creator" (the connotations of which suggest that he's a writer, even though he's clearly more of an artist).**

**Anyway, this isn't exactly the most exciting chapter, since it's just introducing the rest of the cast, with a few minor additions and adjustments to their in-game introductions (though I think Mondo benefits a bit from it, given that he says only two or three lines in his in-game one).**


	3. Welcome to Despair: Part 3

Seeing all the Ultimates together unnerved Makoto a bit. Talking to each of them individually had not been so bad, but their being together reminded him that to them, he was only an untalented everyman who had gotten here by luck. Nonetheless, the one thing that united them was their confusion about what was going on here. And it was at this gym that they would hopefully finish this tiring part of the day.

There were many chairs set up before the stage, where a podium had been set up, and Makoto guessed that this was meant to be where the orientation would be held. Despite the welcoming appearance, none felt no desire to sit down and relax, when there was clearly something off about the situation. Makoto stood near Sayaka and Taka, both of whom looked nowhere as relieved as Hiro.

"See? Told you this was all part of the ceremony!" Hiro said, chuckling.

"Still, this is totally, totally not normal," Junko said, Mukuro standing near her and watching the others warily.

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure this isn't a thing at this kind of school," Hina said, who stood next to Sakura.

"Where's the headmaster?" Chihiro asked, looking around. "Wasn't he the one who told us to come here?"

Everyone started looking around, wondering whether he was simply hiding somewhere, until a voice rang out.

"Hey there, howdy, hello! Is everyone here? Good! Then let's get things rolling!"

It was the same voice that had come from the monitor. All of them froze and slowly turned toward the stage. They stared at the podium and gasped when a black-and-white teddy bear had suddenly popped out from underneath and jumped onto the podium.

"Huh? A… teddy bear?" Chihiro said.

"I'm not a teddy bear!" The voice came from the bear, which drew out more gasps and sounds of amazement from the students. "I… am… Monokuma! And I am this school's headmaster!"

The last statement drew out even more confusion from the sixteen students. Of all the things that Makoto had expected to see today, never had he imagined a talking teddy bear that called itself this school's headmaster. Notwithstanding the fact that the bear was talking, he had an utterly unfitting voice, sounding too carefree and unserious. And the bear's design looked off as well; his black half had a red eye, and his smile was much wider and showed its teeth. His very presence was enough to turn Makoto's worry to fear.

"C-Calm down, everyone!" Taka said, who sounded less than reassuring, especially with his sweating. "I-I'm sure there's a speaker inside it. The true headmaster is speaking through it. After all, there's no way a teddy bear is in charge of this school!"

"Wrong!" Monokuma raised his arms in protest.

"Wh-Whaaaat?! The teddy bear has moved!" Hifumi said.

"Keep your head straight, man!" Mondo said. "It's likely only a remote-controlled toy or something like that."

"Calling me a child's plaything… Those words cut me deep. Deeper than the Mariana Trench," Monokuma looked dejected at first before gleefully boasting of how complex his remote control system was, as if he were having fun with this.

"What the fuck is he going on about?" Mondo said. No one answered him, for all were as bemused as he was, staring at their self-called headmaster with much awe.

"Now then, moving on!" Monokuma said, as if unaware of the fact that his pupils were still in utter unbelief. "First, let's talk about what your school life here will be like. Make no mistakes—you few students, so full of potential, represent the world's hope. And to protect such splendid hope, you will all live a harmonious communal life together only within this school's confines, cleaving to its rules and regulations as well."

"Wh-What?" Makoto and a few others said.

"And as for your communal life's end date," the unbelievable teddy bear said, "there isn't one! In other words, you'll all be here until the day you die!"

Everyone gasped.

"Wh-What has he just said?" Toko said. "Until the day we die?"

"Oh, but fear not!" Monokuma said. "We've got a high enough budget to provide for you, should you be wanting of any common conveniences!"

"That's the least of our worries!" Sayaka said.

"Yeah, what the hell? You're saying I have to, like, live here forever?" Junko said. "You are _so_ screwing with us, right?"

"I am _not _screwing around with you!" Monokuma said. "I am no liar. Of that you can be sure. Oh, and to be clear: you're fully cut off from the outside world. You don't have to ever worry about what goes on outside the school walls!"

"C-Cut off? So all those metal plates all over the school…" Makoto said, growing even more fearful. "They're there to keep us trapped here?!"

"You got it, buster!" Monokuma answered. "However much you scream and yell for help, help will not come. With all that in mind now, you're free to live out your life here as recklessly as you want, students of Hope's Peak Academy!"

Despite protests from some of the others, it had become clear to Makoto that this teddy bear was all too real, and his answer, however unbelievable and horrifying it was, explained something about their predicament. Still, how could the teddy bear happily say that they were to live the rest of their lives here at a school they were supposed to start today? What was he thinking?

"Come now, students! How could you say you want to leave," Monokuma said, "when the entrance ceremony hasn't even finished yet? Oh, but I suppose I should mention that there _is_ one way to leave the school."

"R-Really?" Leon said, his smile showing more relief. "There is?"

"Of course! As headmaster, I've crafted a special clause for you who would like to leave! I call it… the Graduation Clause!"

_The Graduation Clause?_ It was supposed to fill Makoto with hope that this unbelievable situation would come to an end, and from the looks of his peers, some of them now looked relieved. Yet something about it filled him with dread instead.

"As I have said already, you will live together harmoniously in a communal lifestyle," Monokuma began. "But if someone were to disrupt the harmony, that person alone would be allowed to leave the school. And that, my students, is the Graduation Clause."

"What do you mean by 'disrupt the harmony'?" Byakuya asked.

Then Monokuma started chuckling, poorly trying to stifle his laughter. "Well… you know… If someone were to murder another."

"M-Murder?!" Makoto exclaimed, his fellow students gasping or repeating the word with all the dread built up in them. Meanwhile, Monokuma stood there, unfazed by their fear.

"It doesn't matter how you kill your intended victim!" he continued. "The rule is simple: you must kill someone if you want to leave. "

It was those nine words that bereft Makoto of the ability to stay calm. The fear and dread that had been stored inside him now showed itself not only through his words but also through his limbs. His legs and his arms could barely move without shaking.

"Heh heh, the looks on your guys' faces are a blast to watch," the bear said. "As I have said, you're the world's hope, but you know… That same hope can be taken, and through murder, it'll leave a great darkening shadow of despair… And that is so… so… _exciting_!"

"K-Kill each other?" Leon said, his smile growing faker every second. "You're joking, right? Please tell me this is all just one bad joke!"

"What's with that question?" Monokuma said, looking truly confused. "It's no joke, my dear student. That is indeed the only way you can escape, and you'll be forced to stay here if you won't do so! It's like detention, but the teacher really means it this time!"

"L-Let us go home already!" Hifumi exclaimed, as if he had just ignored the bear's answer.

Monokuma sighed. "You don't get it, do you? From now on, this school is your home, your life, your world. And that's not all! You can kill as much as you want! So go on! Go on any killing sprees you have in mind!"

The chaos kept going, Makoto and his peers panicking. One of them, however, walked up to the mad bear.

"Listen up, asshole!" It was Mondo Owada, his voice rumbling throughout the gym. "This shit's gone way too far! What kinda joke is this?!"

Mondo argued more with Monokuma, which added more to the ongoing chaos. But suddenly, all went quiet when the biker grabbed the self-called headmaster and raised him up.

"Gotcha, you little piece of shit!" he said. "Whatever the fuck you are, I'll rip you to fucking shreds!"

A few gasped at the sight, Taka and Toko among the most shocked. It had taken a lot of guts to stand up to their "headmaster", but to physically handle him like this was beyond recklessness. Makoto could only hope that things would end off peacefully, but given the kind of guy that Mondo was, he sensed the futility in his hope.

"Let go of me!" Monokuma said, waving his arms frantically. "Violence against the headmaster is in violation of school regulations!"

"Shut the fuck up! Let me out of here, or I swear I'll…"

But then came a beeping sound from Monokuma, who was now silent.

"Watch out! Get rid of it!" Kyoko yelled, speaking for the first time since coming to the gym. "Hurry up and throw it!"

Mondo without any protest threw Monokuma upwards. Right after he had done so, the bear exploded, leaving no trace of him.

"Wh-What the hell?" Mondo stood there stunned. "Th-That sure as shit wasn't a joke. That goddamn thing blew up."

Makoto could smell gunpowder coming from where Monokuma had exploded. He had thought that he was used to the sight of explosions, having seen them all the time in fiction, but this was real life, and the aftermath was right in front of him.

"Man, what a weird ceremony…" Hiro said, as if still believing this to be some kind of act. "Didn't see anything about a talking stuffed bear blowing up in my predictions."

"You still think this is supposed to be happening?" Sayaka asked him, utterly amazed.

"I think the explosives should be enough to tell us," Sakura remarked, among the least fazed by the explosion, and even then, she still seemed rather shocked at what had just happened.

"But you know…" Chihiro said, staying where she was. "This means that the teddy bear's been destroyed, right?"

"I certainly don't approve of how this has been handled!" Taka said, still mortified. "It is against the rules to physically assault the headmaster!"

"What, you still, like, care about rules at this time and place, especially those made by that weird bear?" Junko said disapprovingly. "Uh, hello, but I don't want to follow them, and neither do the rest of us!"

"Well, in any case, we can get out of here, can't we?" Hina said cheerfully.

Most of the others gladdened at this turn of events. Anticlimatic though it was, it was better than the hellish game that the mad bear calling himself the headmaster would have them play. Of course, it still raised the question of what had happened to the staff of Hope's Peak Academy, but all in all, this made a strange yet happy account to tell Komaru and his parents during dinnertime tonight.

"Still… that felt too easy…"

It was Mukuro, who looked among the more skeptical of the students.

"Oh, come on, don't jinx it!" Leon said, who looked rather tired and keen to leave the gym already. "I'd much prefer leaving things off like this!"

"But she's right," Kyoko said. "For all the preparations that Monokuma made for this killing game, it would be rather odd for him to end things off like this."

"Well, odd or not, I'm heading off! We can leave the rest to the police!" Hifumi said, to which many of the others voiced their agreement.

But much to their horror, before they should leave, Monokuma reappeared from underneath, showing his claws, and though his expression remained unchanged, Makoto could sense a great deal of anger from it.

"Wh-What the fuck?!" Mondo said, taken aback, the other students losing what happiness had come up during that short while. "Y-You tried to kill me!"

"Well, of course," Monokuma said. "You broke one of the school regulations, after all. I'll leave you off with a warning this time, but you'd better be careful from now on."

"S-So does this mean that there's, like, a bunch more of you here?" Junko asked, staring dumbfoundedly at him.

"Yep! Monokumas have been placed throughout the school," he answered. "And don't forget the surveillance cameras! I can see you if you've broken a rule, and any rulebreakers, well… will get a permanent trip to detention!"

"W-Wait a minute! When you say 'permanent trip to detention'... you mean to kill them!" Taka exclaimed.

Monokuma looked askance at him. "Uh, yeah. That was obvious. Way to go ruining my euphemism, you knucklehead!"

A few others protested once more at their so-called headmaster's rules, but it was beyond clear that at this point, their protests had no effect on him, and Mondo appeared not to be in any mood to pick a bone with him anymore.

"Lastly, to end the entrance ceremony and commemorate this precious moment of your new school life, I have a little something for you!" Monokuma showed them a blue tablet with the emblem of Hope's Peak Academy. "This is your official student handbook! Pretty cool, don't you think? As you can see, it's fully digital, so we call it the e-Handbook!

"Remember: the e-Handbook is absolutely vital for your school life, so don't lose it! When you start it up, it will show your name, so make sure the handbook on you is yours!" Monokuma continued as he handed each of them out to its respective owner. Makoto saw that he had also been given a key whose chain had his name on it.

"Now, this is not your everyday notebook. It has many more uses than that, and you can check them out later! Also, it's fully waterproof, so feel free to take it with you to whatever water-involved activities you have in mind!" Monokuma looked proud of the endurability of the handbook. "And thanks to its space-age design, it can withstand an impact force up to ten tons. It's very resistant!"

Makoto had no clue on why the latter protection was needed. Surely nothing in their school life would involve explosions other than any unfortunate punishments dealt to rulebreakers. Still, that he felt compelled to say it left him uneasy.

"The handbook has all of our school regulations," Monokuma said, "so make sure to review them thoroughly! Any violation of the regulations will not be tolerated! Rules restrict, yes, but they also protect. Society, for example, would be utter chaos without rules. The same thing goes here, which is why our punishments are incredibly severe!

"And as for the keys… Well, you'll need them to enter your rooms, of course!" Monokuma explained. "I can't have you sleep in the hallways. That would make things too easy, don't you think? Now then, go ahead and enjoy your abundantly dreary school life! See ya!"

The bear left at last, leaving the sixteen shocked students alone. All were shocked that what had happened in the last few minutes were not figments of their wild imaginations. The e-Handbooks were in their hands, as real as they could be.

"L-Live here forever, or kill to leave?" Toko said. "Wh-What's just happened?!"

"I don't understand any of this!" Leon said. "Kill to get out of here? What kind of sicko is making us do this?!"

"Calm down, everyone." It was Kyoko that looked the calmest of the group. "First, let's take a second to summarize everything that we've heard. Based on what Monokuma has told us, we essentially have two choices.

"Choice number one: we each stay here, living a 'communal life' here until we die," she said. "And the other choice…"

"If we want to escape," Celeste finished for her, "we have to kill someone, yes?"

"But… killing someone… That's…" Chihiro could not finish. Her eyes was filled with even more tears than before.

"A lie!" Taka finished. "All those ridiculous things we've heard must be nothing but falsehoods! They must be!"

"Right now, it doesn't matter whether they're real or fake," Byakuya said. "What matters is whether there's anyone seriously thinking about all this."

None said anything, but Makoto looked at the others. All of them were staring at each other, and from that alone came hostility and a raised sense of alertness.

Makoto then saw what Monokuma's rules had done to them: the only way out of here was to kill someone, and so among the sixteen of them were those who now had the will to kill their fellow peers, whom they had met only a few minutes ago. Instead of any goodwill and work toward making new friendships, there were now suspicion and thoughts of betraying one's peers for one's escape. Even if no one wanted to say it, all could see that the killing game had now begun, and whatever they liked it or not, they had to participate for the amusement of whatever Monokuma was.

And so began Makoto Naegi's new school life at Hope's Peak Academy.

* * *

**Well, that's the end of the prologue. It's mostly the same as the in-game one, but I included it in for completion's sake, and now that the prologue is done, and the killing game has officially begun, I can finally start writing Chapter 1, where things will start getting more different. I've already decided who the victim and the culprit will be, though I'm still working out the details of the crime and how the class trial and the execution will play out.**

**Cast (as a way to show who still lives at the end of each chapter):**

**1\. Makoto Naegi - Ultimate Lucky Student**

**2\. Byakuya Togami - Ultimate Affluent Progeny**

**3\. Leon Kuwata - Ultimate Baseball Star**

**4\. Yasuhiro Hagakure - Ultimate Clairvoyant **

**5\. Mondo Owada - Ultimate Bike Gang Leader**

**6\. Hifumi Yamada - Ultimate Fanfic Creator**

**7\. Kiyotaka Ishimaru - Ultimate Moral Compass**

**8\. Chihiro Fujisaki - Ultimate Programmer**

**9\. Sayaka Maizono - Ultimate Pop Sensation**

**10\. Kyoko Kirigiri - Ultimate ?**

**11\. Sakura Ogami - Ultimate Martial Artist**

**12\. Aoi Asahina - Ultimate Swimmer**

**13\. Junko Enoshima - Ultimate Fashionista**

**14\. Celestia Ludenberg - Ultimate Gambler**

**15\. Toko Fukawa - Ultimate Writing Prodigy**

**16\. Mukuro Ikusaba - Ultimate Soldier**


	4. Woe is Me for Believing: Part 1

**Chapter 1: Woe is Me for Believing**

All the students eyed each other, wariness and mistrust growing throughout the room. Some like Hifumi and Yasuhiro were open in their fear and confusion, whereas others like Celeste and Byakuya looked as if they were already determining the roles of each of them here as players to this mad game. Makoto could hardly breathe, Monokuma's last words the source of his mind's every fear and worry.

"So what do you plan to do now? Are you going to stand here glancing at each other?"

The one to break the silence and their glances was Kyoko Kirigiri. Somehow, she appeared to be among the few not startled by the newborn possibility that there was now a murderer waiting among them.

"Yes, that's right," Mukuro said. "We won't get us anywhere if we stay like this."

"Y-You're right!" Taka raised his fist, apparently having gotten back his hot-blooded, confident mood. "We need to step forward, however nervous and afraid we may be!"

"And we've totally got to find whoever controlled that stupid bear," Junko added, "and, like, beat the living hell out of them!"

"B-But before we do all of that," Chihiro said, having stopped weeping, "maybe we should take a look at the handbook…"

"Aha. Stumbling around without knowing the rules seems like a brave idea," Celeste said. "But we surely don't want something like _that_ to happen again."

All the students then looked down at their e-Handbooks to read the rules. Makoto turned his own and found his name flash right before him on the handbook. A menu then popped up, and he clicked on the icon for School Regulations. They were:

1\. Students may reside only within the school. Leaving campus is an unacceptable use of time.

2\. "Nighttime" is from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m. Some areas are off-limits at night, so please exercise caution.

3\. Sleeping anywhere other than the dormitory will be seen as sleeping in class and punished accordingly.

4\. With minimal restrictions, you are free to explore Hope's Peak Academy at your discretion.

5\. Violence against Headmaster Monokuma is strictly prohibited, as is destruction of surveillance cameras.

6\. Anyone who kills a fellow student and becomes "blackened" will graduate, unless they are discovered.

7\. Additional school regulations may be added as necessary.

Makoto grew a little dizzy upon finishing. He had just seen what violating Regulation 5 brought, and he could only imagine the aftermath of violating Regulation 6, which he had not the heart to do. He hoped that it was the same for everyone else, and when he raised his head and looked back at his peers, he saw nothing but trouble and anger.

"Uh, I have a question…" It was Sayaka, who still appeared not to have gotten back her composure. "For Regulation 6… what does it mean, exactly?"

"Is it the second half that bothers you?" Makoto asked. "'Unless they are discovered'?"

"It's quite simple," Byakuya said. "It means that if you want to graduate, you must kill someone without anyone finding out that it was you."

In other words, any murderers among them had to make sure that their misdeeds could not be traced back to them. Everything about this got even worse and worse, amazingly enough.

"Well, now that we know all the rules," Hina said, "let's look around a bit more! Maybe something's changed!"

"I'm going alone," Byakuya said. "Someone among us may have the idea of killing one of us, and I prefer not to be the first victim."

"Wh-What? Wait a second!" Sayaka said. "Th-That'll never happen—"

"Don't bother saying it can't happen." Byakuya suddenly looked much sterner and even a bit wroth. "All of you can't deny the possibility. Why else did you freeze up with fear after the graduation rule was made clear to you?"

Sayaka tried to answer, but when it was clear that she had no good answer, Byakuya sneered.

"I'm simply acting in accordance with what I think is best for me," he continued. "Now, if you'll excuse me—"

"Hold on there!" It was Mondo, who looked ready to pick a fight with him. "You think I'll let you run off and do whatever you want?!"

"Out of the way, plankton," Byakuya retorted.

Mondo eyed him leerily. "What the fuck does that mean?"

Byakuya sighed as if it were obvious. "Such ignorance. You are but one tiny bit of plankton, drifting through the sea. So small, so unimportant, your being has no effect on the wide sea around you."

"All right, that's it, pal, I'm gonna kick your fucking ass!" Mondo cracked his knuckles.

"Stop it!" Makoto said, knowing that the situation had gone too far. "We shouldn't fight!"

"Who the fuck do you think you are, talking to me like that?! You thinking of stopping me or something?"

"No, I'm only saying—"

"Fuck you!"

And it was too late. Mondo punched Makoto right in the face, which knocked him back a great distance and made him collide with a few chairs. Of all his thoughts of someone planning to kill another, Makoto was shocked to find violence done on him that soon and directly. It had all been something his mind had come up with, but to have it done on him was another thing.

Of course, he should have known that this would happen eventually. He had learned long ago that being around that kind of crowd would lead to something like this, and yet he must have thought that being around all these Ultimates made things different. In the end, it took that punch for him to realize that this situation was not different at all.

The last thing that he could see were two classmates running toward him. He could barely make them out, and his mind had not enough focus to tell who they were. Afterwards, everything turned black.

* * *

Makoto woke up, only to find himself in a room that he had never seen before. This certainly was not the gym, in which he had lost consciousness. He found himself lying on a bed with incredibly plain covering and blue sheets. The wallpaper was red, and the floor tiles blue. Everything looked incredibly simple and minimalistic.

_It's all right for a bedroom, I guess._ His head still hurt a little from Mondo's punch, but luckily, nothing else seemed to be wrong with him.

There was a lint roller near the bed. He was expected to clean his room, but right now, things looked tidy, so he had no need of it. The door near the bed appeared to lead to the bathroom. But when Makoto tried to open it, he found that it was locked.

"Nope! It's not locked!" Out of nowhere, Monokuma showed up.

"Holy crap!" Makoto blurted out. He was the last thing that he wanted to see in his bedroom.

"Jeez, talk about an overreaction. It's as if you'd seen a ghost or something!" Monokuma said.

"Wh-What are you doing here?!" Makoto said.

"Oh, I'm just here to tell you there's a problem with your doorframe," he answered.

"So it really isn't locked? It just doesn't fit?"

"Haven't you read the notice, bozo? Boys' bathrooms don't have locks!" Monokuma answered. "Thankfully, I don't need to do any more work. There's a trick to opening this, you see. Just turn the doorknob and lift up while you pull!"

When Makoto did that, the door opened right up.

"Isn't it crazy, though? Your door's the only one here that doesn't fit quite right!" Monokuma chortled. "You're meant to be the Ultimate Lucky Student, but it looks like you're not so lucky after all!"

Once Monokuma disappeared, taking in what had just happened, Makoto went into the bathroom. At least it looked clean, and he would have to shower soon, if he wanted his classmates not to complain about his smell.

There was a notepad on the desk behind his bed. He thought about whether he should write a diary, and there was surely enough to document, but upon realizing that there was a surveillance camera watching him, he did not feel comfortable enough to put his thoughts on paper.

He then looked at the drawers. There was a toolkit that had tools such as a screwdriver and a hammer. It was still brand-new, since the wrapping was still there. Makoto wondered whether it was his responsibility to repair anything that broke in his room.

Hanging on the wall was a piece of paper, which he took off and read. It was an announcement of Monokuma's, and it said that each room's lock had been designed in such a way that it was protected against tampering or lockpicking, and that remaking a key, should it be lost, was troublesome. At least he had the comfort of knowing that no one could sneak up to him in the middle of the night.

There was more. The water from the shower was turned off at nighttime, and the bathrooms in the girls' rooms also came with a lock. And each student also was given a gift; for the girls, it was a sewing kit, and for the boys, a toolkit. It disturbed him greatly to read that the sewing kit came with a map of the body's vital organs, and that a blow to the head with any tool from the toolkit was enough to kill someone. Makoto now wanted nothing more than to throw it away, but there _was_ a chance he might need it in the future, so he let it be.

He turned to the other door in the room, which appeared to lead outside. Now that he was up and about, he thought it best to meet up with the others. After picking up his key, which had been put on a nearby round table, he opened the door and rushed out, only to find that someone had been waiting for him.

"Oh! Sayaka!" Makoto said upon realizing that he had accidentally bumped into her. She now lay on the floor, rubbing her head. "S-Sorry! Are you all right?"

"I-I'm fine. Sorry about that," she said, an embarrassed smile on her face.

"A-Are you sure about that?"

"Really, I am!" she said as she stood up. "Jumping up and down let me build some pretty good muscle.

"But are _you _all right? Mondo hit you pretty hard back there."

"O-Oh, I'm all right! I'm fully all right!" Makoto insisted. In truth, some of the pain still remained, but he thought it would go away after a little time, so it was no big deal.

"That's good to hear!" She gave a great big smile that made Makoto feel some of his pain go away. "Well, if you're feeling better now, then could you head over to the dining hall?"

"Huh? Why?" Makoto said. Come to think of it, what was she doing here?

"After you were knocked out, all of us left separately to do our own things," she explained. "We thought it was best to check whether there was anything new added, and we were to get together later to talk about what we'd found."

"Well, if that's the case, let's go!" Makoto said, now also keen to find out what had happened since Mondo's attack on him.

* * *

"Uh, we didn't have enough time when we were speaking earlier," Sayaka said, "but there's a question I want to ask you."

"Sure, what is it?"

Makoto and Sayaka had arrived at the dining hall, only to find no one there. It seemed that the others were still looking around. On the one hand, he wanted to know whether they had found anything to help them get out of here. But on the other hand, this was time that he had alone with Sayaka, and now that someone like Taka was not here, their choice for conversation was much freer.

"Did you happen to go to Blackroot Junior High? Were you maybe… in class 2?"

"Y-Yeah, I was!" Makoto was surprised to see that she had remembered him from middle school. Even back in middle school, Sayaka was a celebrity, and so he could never forget her, but it was surprising to see her remember someone whom she had never even talked to. She was in class 4, though, so it was no surprise that she had had few opportunities to talk to him.

"Are you all right?" she asked.

"Oh, yeah, I am, but I'm just surprised," he answered. "You remember me of all people. There were a lot of students in our grade, and even among average students, I'm the most average of them all. It's as if I were meant to be forgettable."

"Oh, what are you talking about?" she said. "You're so strange!"

"S-Strange?"

She giggled even more, and yet Makoto could not find himself displeased at her. Rather, her smile only worked to calm him and make him feel better.

Not long after, however, someone came into the dining hall.

"Hey, Makoto, Sayaka! So you two are the first ones here!" It was Taka, the Ultimate Moral Compass. He beamed at their sight. "Too bad for me, though. I was sure I'd be the first one here. I guess that means I must work harder to improve myself!"

Makoto thought it amazing that Taka could work himself up over being third, especially when it came to such a small thing. Nonetheless, Taka seemed pretty happy about it.

The others soon came one by one. Mondo in particular looked not at all sorry for his attack, grumbling instead as Byakuya came. After Hiro and Leon came, Taka slammed the table that most of the students sat by, Byakuya and Toko sitting at another table instead.

"All right! It's time to start the meeting!" he said. "Let's all go around and share what we found out in our respective investigations! The sooner we find out what's going on, the sooner we get out of here!"

"Wait, where's that lavender-haired girl?" Junko asked. "What's her name again…?"

"Kyoko," Mukuro answered.

"Wh-What?!" Taka said before all the students glanced around the room. The prefect grew even more horrified when he saw that Junko was right. When Hina asked whether anyone had seen her, the others shook their heads. Makoto wondered why she had not shown up yet. Then he recalled Monokuma's words, and his curiosity quickly turned to fear. As Byakuya said, the possibility that someone among them was a murderer could not be denied, and according to Sayaka, all of them had split up…

"Dang it, Kyoko! To be late on the first day of school?!" Taka said, the most fired up of the fifteen about her absence. "And to not tell anyone else about it! Such an unbecoming personality trait!"

Nonetheless, he would not let that stop him, so he declared that the meeting had begun. Now it was time for everyone to report what had been found.

According to Taka, the dormitory had exactly one room for each person, which was already obvious to Makoto. Each room already had a nameplate, so the rooms had already been assigned. Furthermore, Junko and Mukuro had discovered that the rooms were soundproof; in other words, anything going on in a closed room would not be heard by anyone, even the neighbors. At least the room, barring the intruding camera, was fully private.

According to Byakuya, he had tried to find some clues as to who had imprisoned them here. Unluckily, he had found nothing. Upon his mentioning it, Mondo mumbled something, and judging by his expression, Makoto guessed that he believed more that Byakuya had done nothing at all and only wanted to stay away from them.

According to Leon, Hiro, Junko, and Mukuro, the metal plates throughout the school could not be taken off. In other words, they were fully cut off from the outside world.

According to Hina, Sakura, and Mondo, they had tried to look for a way to talk with the outside world, but they had found nothing. Mondo and Sakura had even tried to take down the metal hatch in the main hall, but they had had no luck. There was something else that Sakura reported, however. There were gates in the school and dorm areas blocking them from stairs that led up to another floor. Thus, they were stuck at the first floor for now, but if there were other floors, a way out could be at one of the upper floors.

Celeste, Toko, Chihiro, and Hifumi, however, had stayed in the gym the whole time, for which Junko chided them. Makoto could not blame them; knowing that they were in this kind of situation now must have shocked them greatly. Even Celeste, with her rather stoic expression, must be hiding it right now.

Last up was Sayaka. She had searched the kitchen and had found a fridge in the back. The fridge was filled with sundry items of food, so food was not a problem for them. And all the food was restocked each day. How had she come to know this? Apparently, Monokuma had come up to her and told her.

"He moved so fast," Sayaka said, "that I can't believe someone could've been moving him around with a remote control."

"A weaponized toy that can just appear from nowhere…" Chihiro said. "I can't tell whether we're meant to be afraid or not."

"Well, of course we should be afraid!" Junko said. "We're, like, prisoners here! We could totally die here any second now!"

"That's right!" Mondo said. "We've got to do something, not stand here around talking!"

"You're all spending an awful lot of time yelling and carrying on."

Everyone turned toward where the voice had come. It was Kyoko Kirigiri.

"Do you think you can afford to do so? Have none of you accepted the reality of our situation?"

"Kyoko!" Taka exclaimed, pointing at her. "Where the heck have you been?! We've already started the meeting without you!"

She did not answer him, however. Instead, she put a piece of paper on the table. According to her, it was a map of Hope's Peak Academy.

"Wh-Where did you find this?!" Taka asked, reading it while amazed.

"It doesn't matter where I found it."

"It _does_ matter! You're freaking us out by not being forthcoming!"

"Let's forget about that for now," Mukuro said as she read the map. "What does this mean?"

"The map shows that this building is laid out the same way as Hope's Peak Academy," Kyoko answered. "In terms of its construction, this building appears to be the academy."

"'In terms of?'"

"It seems that it's had a number of… strange renovations done to it," Kyoko explained. "But I don't have all the details yet. All I have are details about the first floor."

"But then… This really is Hope's Peak," Chihiro said. "We didn't get kidnapped and taken to some other place."

A few of them such as Junko and Hifumi paled upon hearing so; it would have made much more sense if they had been taken to another place by nefarious evildoers, but if this truly was Hope's Peak, then something greatly strange was going on. If the headmaster and the staff were behind this, then was the whole thing about Hope's Peak a shame to begin with?

"Then it is crystal clear what is going on," Celeste said, keeping her cold attitude. "We have been imprisoned in some secret location, with no way out."

Despite how blunt her statement was, none of them could deny the reality that they were in. But however much Makoto wanted to ignore it, it was still there.

"Y-You don't have to go and say that," Toko said. "I-I was trying not to th-think about it! N-No way out… W-We're trapped here! What are we supposed to d-do?"

"It's simple." Byakuya looked as prideful as ever, showing no concern about their predicament. "If you want to leave, all you have to do is kill—"

"Don't even joke about that!" Junko blurted out. "Th-There must be, like, something else we can do!"

"All we can do is adapt," Celeste said. "We can only adapt to living here from now on."

Chihiro, on the other hand, looked like she was about to cry. "Live here? Are you saying we should just accept it?"

"If you do not adapt," Celestia said, leaning toward her and looking stern for the first time, "you will not survive. Survival is based not on strength or speed but on ability to adapt. And that is why I have a suggestion to make."

All of them looked at her with bated breath.

"We likely will be spending the night here," she continued. "If you remember Regulations 2 and 3, those caught sleeping outside their dorm rooms during nighttime will be punished. Because of that, we ought to add a rule of our own: going out of nighttime should be forbidden altogether. The way things are playing out now, we become anxious and worried when nighttime comes. Nighttime seems to us the best opportunity for a murderer to strike."

Even though this rule was unofficial and thus could not be enforced, all of them thought that it was good to have the rule. They could only trust each other to follow it. And since no one had anything else to say, Taka decided to end today's meeting and have the next one sometime later.

"Junko, let's call it a day," Mukuro said. "I don't think I can work right now like this."

"Yeah, neither can I." Junko yawned.

"Our only option right now is to split up and look around again," Sakura said. "We can only hope that we find something new."

And so everyone left, heading back to the dorms.

* * *

As soon as Makoto shut his door, the bell rang, and a voice came from the monitor.

"Mm, ahem, this is a school announcement. It is now 10 p.m." It was Monokuma. "As such, it is officially nighttime. Soon the doors to the dining hall will be locked, and entry at that point is strictly prohibited. Okay then… sweet dreams, everyone! Good night, sleep tight, don't let the bed bugs bite…"

Makoto sighed, wishing that he did not have to hear that bear's voice ever again. He went to the bathroom first, and after he was done, he went to bed. To have to go through all of today's events and accept that the situation truly was bad had taken much from him, and so he was in no mood to do anything else.

_I can only hope that all of this is only a bad dream_, he thought before falling asleep.

* * *

**Nothing much new here, since it's still introductory stuff.**

**Anyway, it's kind of weird that Makoto's room has literally nothing in it besides basic furniture. I mean, yeah, he's pretty average, but come on, did he truly bring nothing to the school while he was there for two years? The same goes for Sayaka's and Kyoko's rooms; I can see why the latter doesn't have a customized bedroom, but you'd think that Sayaka's room had things related to her idol career. The rooms in DR1 for the most part show off the characters' personalities a lot, which is why I'm a bit disappointed to see that the same thing isn't repeated in the other games (though the research labs in V3 kind of make up for this).**

**Also, there's a thing that I've seldom see people talk about: the react system. You know, the thing with the purple words. It's kind of weird to see it in DR1, since all the other games drop it. It's essentially a way to do dialogue trees, so it's kind of interesting and useful, but I can see why it hasn't been brought back.**


	5. Woe is Me for Believing: Part 2

"Good morning, everyone!" Monokuma said from the monitor. "It is now 7 a.m. and nighttime is officially over! Time to rise and shine! Get ready to greet another beee-yutiful day!"

Makoto groaned as he woke up. Besides the usual want to sleep for only five more minutes, he was not in the mood to hear that stupid bear's voice.

_Morning already, huh_, he thought as he got out of bed. Since all the windows were now covered, he could only take Monokuma at his word. _Now what should I do today? Might as well meet up with the others._

After taking a short shower, Makoto headed out, only to find someone waiting outside.

"Oh, Makoto, good morning!" It was Sayaka, which already brightened his morning.

"And good morning to you!" Makoto sheepishly grinned. "What's up?"

"Nothing much," she said. "But I was thinking that we could get breakfast together."

"That sounds good!" Makoto, even if he were not hungry, found that it would be impossible to deny her offer with her smile.

They headed over to the dining hall and found that a few others were there as well.

"Makoto, Sayaka, good morning!" Taka yelled. Sitting with him by the main table were Junko and Mukuro.

"And good morning to you." Celeste smiled, sitting at a different table. "I hope none of you have broken the rule that we agreed to."

"Of course I haven't!" Taka said, slamming his fist on the table. "I made sure to be sound asleep right after nighttime began! I'm very punctual in my schedule!"

Junko yawned, looking both tired and beset by woe and worry. "Lucky you. I couldn't stop thinking about what's going on here. I mean, we're, like, trapped here by whoever's controlling that bear."

"Junko, maybe you should head back to bed," Mukuro said gently. "It wouldn't do you any good to lose a lot of sleep."

"Nah, I'm okay, sis," Junko answered, a small smile now popping up. "Really, I am. I've gone through more tiring mornings."

It was good to see that the two sisters were all right. They were the only students who were related to each other, and so they had a special bond in which each would protect the other.

_Wait, that's not true_, Makoto thought. He turned to Sayaka. _She remembered me from long ago, even when I was just an average student. Our bond is special as well._

Sayaka offered to make all of them some eggs and toast, to which none had any objections. As soon as she headed into the kitchen, a few more came into the room. First were Sakura and Hina, who sat at a separate table. They were chatting happily with each other and appeared to have been working out together; it gladdened Makoto to see that those two had already become friends. Next was Byakuya, who looked as apathetic as he had been yesterday. And the last one was Chihiro, who sat right across from him and next to Celeste.

"Good morning," Celeste said to Chihiro.

"Uh, good morning," she said, who was looking down at the table.

"Is something wrong?" Makoto asked.

"Oh, i-it's nothing," Chihiro said. "I still can't believe that we're trapped here. All of this feels like a nightmare."

"That's an understatement," Celeste said. "But you know what I said yesterday: you must learn to adapt, or else you will die."

Unsurprisingly, Chihiro looked even sadder. She and Celeste definitely did not make a good combination. For someone trying to look like a princess, it appeared that she could not take a clue on what was not appropriate to say.

"Haha!" It was Taka, who had been talking to Junko and Mukuro. "I assure you, Junko, you'll find it easier to deal with all this with your new duty!"

"Really? Can't see what cleaning duty will do for me," Junko said, a little irked.

"If you want, I can do it for you instead," Mukuro said.

"No! Junko needs to accept all of this!" Taka said. "And what better way to better oneself than work? She'll get used to her surroundings and find it easier to be here!"

"Then you should lead by example," Celeste said. "Or dare I say that you are offering her the job only because you wish to slack off?"

"S-Slack off?!" Taka waved a fist at her, though anyone could tell that at no point would Taka actually hit her. "All right, then! I'll show you how good my cleaning prowess is!"

"Phew!" Junko said, giving Celeste a thankful smile.

"But don't you think I've forgotten about you, Junko!" Taka said. "I'll make you do it later, so prepare yourself in the meantime!"

"Aw, man," she mumbled.

"And fear not! You won't be alone in this duty! We'll give this to someone else next week!" Taka said, his face a mix of relief and pride.

"N-Next week?" Chihiro said, tears swelling in her eyes. "We'll still be here next week?"

Taka, as soon as he noticed the effects of his words, gasped. "Oh, _if_ we're here next week! Hopefully, if all goes well, we'll have gotten out by then!"

Unfortunately, Chihiro kept her head down, showing no signs of happiness or optimism. Makoto wished that he could cheer her up somehow.

Once Sayaka was done with breakfast and passed out dishes to everyone, Makoto tried some of it and found his dish of rice cooked with salmon and chicken utterly delighting.

"This is amazing!" Makoto said.

"Indeed," Sakura said.

"Delicious!" Junko said, eating hers quickly.

"I thank you very much for this service," Celeste said. "But if only I had something to drink…"

"Th-Thank you," Chihiro said. Even she looked a bit gladder at the sight of breakfast.

"Oh, it's no problem," Sayaka said. "Even though I'm an idol, I do enjoy cooking. If you want, I can cook you guys dinner as well."

Taka laughed merrily. "This is marvelous! For you to give yourself more work is a great deal of a good mindset!"

And that was how Sayaka became the cook for the group.

"Say, Makoto," Sayaka said, "does your head still hurt?"

Makoto finished swallowing what he was eating first. "Huh? Oh, yeah, I feel all right now. You don't need to worry about me."

"Th-That's good," Chihiro said. "Uh, Makoto? I-I think you should know that it was Sakura who carried you to your room."

"Oh, really?" Makoto had fully forgotten about why he had been in his room when he had awakened. He had assumed someone had carried him, but it had slipped his mind to ask who had done him this earlier.

"That's right," Sakura said. "Right after you were hit, Sayaka and I ran to see whether you were all right. It was fortunate that you had not been hurt greatly."

"Well, if that's the case," Makoto said, "thanks, Sakura. I appreciate what you did."

Before he had come to Hope's Peak Academy, he had read that it was best that he avoid her, the "Ogre". But now that he had seen her, she seemed not a bad person at all.

"Hmph. That Mondo man is an uncouth, loathsome creature," Celeste said. "His rude speech notwithstanding, he lacks forethought and patience."

"That's rather harsh, don't you think?" Makoto could not say that he liked the man, but he at least understood why Mondo had acted the way he had been yesterday.

"Harsh or not, his mindset is not a lucky player's," Celeste said. "If we were to play this killing game seriously, it would be easy to see him among the losers."

"That… That's such a horrible thing to say…" Chihiro said, more dispirited than ever. Makoto agreed with her, but he could see that nothing he said would change Celeste's mind.

"Speaking of Mondo," Taka said, "has anyone seen him?"

"I have," Sakura said. "When I left my room, I saw him head over to the school area. He said that he was taking a walk and looking for any way to get out."

"Hmph. He needs not to look for one." It was Byakuya, who looked as prideful as he had been when Mondo had tried to stop him yesterday. "Surely he must have realized that the one behind this killing game would not be so foolish as to leave us a way out."

Much as Makoto would like to protest, there was no denying that what Byakuya said was right. He could not see any way for things to get better; if Monokuma had taken the time to trap them all here, he must have been smart enough to seal off their exits. This was nothing but a game to him, and he would not want to see it end prematurely.

That said, however, he still had a tiny hope that someone would end it so. It was too unbelievable that the outside world was unaware of the danger that they were in and would not try to rescue them.

"It is unbelievable, isn't it?" Sayaka said. "Let's hope for the best, Makoto."

After breakfast ended at a somewhat gloomy note, everyone split up and headed elsewhere. Makoto decided to walk around the dorm area. If he was going to be here for a while, he needed to work out what he could do here.

* * *

In the hallway that was blocked by a gate at the other end, Kyoko Kirigiri was standing around. She was by far the most mysterious of the group; not only would she not tell him his talent, but she also had shown no fear toward what Monokuma had said. What had she been doing? Whatever it might be, however disappointing the answer might be, Makoto could not but be intrigued to find out.

"Yo, Makoto!"

Walking toward him was Leon Kuwata. He looked considerably less angry or frightful about the whole situation now; it seemed that a good night's sleep had given him some composure.

"What's up?" Makoto asked.

"You want to hang out, man?" Leon asked. "There's nothing to do right now. No karaoke bar, no TV to watch, not even any baseball to do! Never thought I'd say that."

Thinking about it more seriously, Makoto could see that he had better make a few friends here. Sure, they were all classmates, but it was apparent that a few of them would soon get together and form cliques. And besides, Leon was a nice easy-going guy who seemed like the ideal best friend that a guy could have.

And so Makoto and Leon spent their time walking around the dorms and the school area. Most of the time, however, Leon was rubbing his head, looking toward the side.

"Don't they have anything good?" the baseballer said as they headed into the store. He looked around at the counter, his eyes seldom fixed upon one thing.

"Well, what do you want?" Makoto asked.

"I don't know, something to kill some time fast!" Leon answered. "You think the machine has anything good?"

The MonoMono machine, according to Monokuma, had many prizes of various uses. Some were merely cosmetic, while others seemed much more practical. Every day, the students each were given only one chance to get a prize from the machine; they would have to wait the next day to try it again.

Leon tried the machine out, and waiting in anticipation, he begged for good luck several times. Apparently, he wanted something that could make him look more fashionable. Once the machine gave out the prize, he let out a great cheer.

"All right!" Leon said as he showed off his prize, which was a metal ring with a bright and shiny diamond. "Now this is what I'm talking about! This ring's perfect for my engagement!"

"Huh? Do you have a girlfriend?"

"Eh, no. But I'm hoping to get one once we get out of here!" Leon said as he stuffed the ring into his pockets. "You know, I think Junko's my kind of girl. She's pretty hot and friendly as well. Sayaka's not too bad herself."

"Really?" Makoto said, feeling a bit tenser now.

"Yeah, she can cook, and she looks out for others. That's gotta be something special," Leon answered. "All the ladies aren't too bad, though. Even Sakura, who scared me, if truth be told. They're all a far better match for me than my cousin is, that's for sure."

"Your cousin?"

"Yeah, her name's Kanon, and you won't believe how much she's obsessed with me! Drives me crazy! She keeps saying she loves me, you know. You might think that she means family love, but let me tell you, after the three-thousandth confession, you'd know that she means _love _love."

Makoto had already been a bit suspicious when Leon had mentioned her cousin, but if this girl had confessed to him, her own cousin, a thousand times already, then there was something seriously weird going on with her.

"You don't hate her, though, right?"

Leon looked aghast for a second. "Of course not, man! She's family. She's like a little sister to me, so I've gotta look out for her, too. I just wish that she stopped with her constant confessing, that's all. I don't want to keep rejecting her and make us go through the whole thing again."

With how he described her, Makoto could hardly imagine how she would react if something bad were to suddenly happen to Leon.

"Well, if she keeps going after you," Makoto said, "then there's something about you that charms her, isn't there?"

"Hmm… Now that you mention it..." Leon chuckled a bit, trying to find some solace in his predicament with his cousin. "I never looked it that way. It's funny now that I think about it. Guess that's the drawback of having what the other guys don't have."

However prideful he might be, Leon was definitely a good guy to have around. If this were a normal high school setting, he would be someone to whom he could talk about his troubles.

After talking a bit more, the two headed back to the dorm area.

"It's been nice talking with you," Leon said. "See you later, buddy."

Leon walked back to his dorm, Makoto happy to know more about one of his classmates.

He then noticed that Kyoko Kirigiri was gone. He headed right to her door and knocked on her door, only to get no answer. She must have gone elsewhere while he had been hanging out with Leon.

_Oh, well,_ Makoto thought. _I can try again later._

* * *

A short while later, Makoto left the room, wanting to see what Sayaka was up to. When he knocked on her door, however, no response came. She must be out right now.

He thought to try again later and was about to head back to his room, only to see that Mondo was coming to him.

"Makoto, is it?" Mondo said. "You've got time right now?"

"Uh, yeah," Makoto said. "Why do you ask?"

"Listen, man, I…" Mondo scratched the back of his neck for a few seconds. "I just want to say that I'm sorry for what I did to you the other day."

Makoto had mostly forgotten about it, since he had quickly recovered from his injuries, but given how the others had talked about him, he felt rather sorry for him.

"You don't have to apologize," Makoto replied. "You were just angry because of how Byakuya treated you. And I'm not that hurt."

"You really mean that?" Mondo said. "Can't believe you got over that real quick."

"No, really, I did!"

"Well, if that's what you say, man." Mondo sighed. "You seem like a good guy that I wouldn't mind having around, if you ask me. Maybe I oughta show you to my gang later."

"Really?" Makoto thought himself to be rather boring, but he certainly was no rulebreaker, let alone the kind of guy who would dye his hair or change it to a pompadour.

"You haven't got brawn, but you're the kind of guy who likes to listen," he said. "Now, what's your ride?"

"My ride?" Makoto soon saw that he was talking about motorcycles. "Oh, uh… I don't ride anything."

"What?! You're not a little kid anymore, but you still don't have your own hog?!" Mondo stared at him with incredulity at first. "You're more of a fucking dweeb than I thought. But you know, this is when I'm gonna teach you! Take it from me, Makoto: a real man rides Kawasaki. You oughta see it, man. Its monster power's pretty damn sweet, but it takes skill to use it."

Makoto had never been interested in motorcycles, and so he could not tell how well-known this Kawasaki was. But seeing the delinquent in a good mood made him only nod along.

"You really do love your motorcycle, huh?" Makoto said.

"Damn right I do! I'm a fucking biker, and we bikers are crazy as hell!" Mondo said, voice raised.

"Yeah, you're the leader of the land's greatest bike gang, right?"

Mondo flashed him a thumbs-up. "Damn straight! The Crazy Diamonds, my invincible gang! When the boys and I go on a ride, it really takes me out of there, you know?"

But the delinquent sighed, looking wistful. "I need to know what the hell is going on outside. I need to know whether my boys are all right. I mean, I took over once my older brother, Daiya, died. I still need to look out for them, even if I left one of my top men to be in charge a while ago."

Makoto was awed, for the boastful and prideful man now looked tired and beat. He oozed a great deal of weakness, and being the biggest bike gang's leader now suddenly sounded less prestigious, if there had been any prestige in it.

"You've been trying to find a way out, haven't you?" Makoto said, remembering what the others had said.

"Yeah, I thought a good night's sleep would give me some ideas," Mondo said. "But it didn't. Still nothing!"

"You can give up if you want."

"Give up on getting out of here? No, fuck that!" Mondo yelled, looking angry. "I'm not gonna let the piece of shit running this place get away with this! I'm gonna find the bastard and give him a piece of my mind!"

Sensing that Mondo would not change his mind, Makoto decided to stop insisting that he let things be as they were right now. It was bad that they had no options right now, but surely something would show itself to them eventually. But it was, admittedly, rather hard to believe that, especially after a day had seemed to pass, so he could not fault Mondo much for this.

Makoto thought to change the topic and thought about whom Mondo might like. "Mondo, what do you think about Sakura? She seems pretty trustworthy."

"Yeah, she's pretty tough and smart," Mondo said. "Doesn't seem like the kind of girl who'd be part of my gang, though. She has honor, but not our keenness to do things our way."

"Maybe you should train with her," Makoto suggested, upon hearing which, Mondo grew angry.

"No fucking way, man! I can't hit a woman!" Mondo said, his fist shaking. "It's dishonorable! My mom would have my hide!"

It was a bit surprising that Mondo had that kind of mindset, since it made Makoto think him to be even less intimidating than before. It was as if he were simply putting up an appearance that was expected of him. But he was still the Ultimate Bike Gang Leader. Surely he had some strength to back up his title.

* * *

The rest of the day had been rather uneventful. As Leon had said, there was nothing to do with what Monokuma had given them so far. The bathhouse was closed, and they had no access to the second floor. Ordinarily, Makoto would pass the time by playing a video game, watching a cartoon, or reading a comic. But he had none of those things now, and so he thought to spend the rest of his day lying on his bed and thinking about his current predicament.

A long while later, someone knocked on his door. It was Sayaka.

"Makoto, it's time for dinner," she said.

Makoto gladly followed her to the dining hall, where everyone but Kyoko was. He sat at a separate table with Sayaka, and together, they ate bowls of fried rice that came with vegetables and fish. Though they were ordinary meals, there was still something about Sayaka's cooking that made them wonderful. Sayaka giggled once Makoto finished his meal and asked whether there was more.

As Sayaka went to get him more food, he looked around and noticed Byakuya and Toko sitting at a separate table, as they had this morning. Meanwhile, most of the others were happily talking with each other, as if this whole killing game were a thing of the past. The only ones who still looked otherwise were Chihiro, who ate her food with little glee on her face, and Mukuro, who seemed content but nevertheless not outwardly happy as she sat next to her sister.

Not long after, Sayaka came back with more food. This time, she had cooked him a dish of udon alongside some tempura. Makoto was amazed that despite all the hard work that she had been doing, she looked not at all tired.

"Oh, don't get me wrong. It is tiring," she said. "But I enjoy it, so I don't mind."

Makoto could only chuckle as he started eating.

"Makoto, I know that I can count on you," she said.

"Huh?"

"Having you by my side makes me feel better. If you weren't here with me, then I wouldn't know what to do. These aren't the best conditions to meet each other again, of course, but I'm still relieved that you're with me."

"Sayaka…" Makoto grew a little embarrassed to hear Sayaka say that, however nice it was. "I… I know how you feel."

Sayaka smiled in response. Hers was a smile that lightened his mood and gladdened his heart whenever he saw it.

"You know, I never thought I'd get a chance to talk to you like this," she said. "You never talked or looked at me during middle school."

"Well, you were a celebrity. I couldn't go around staring at you," he said. "And wait, how did you know I never looked at you?"

"Well… I looked at you all the time."

Makoto widened his eyes. "Wh-What do you mean by that?"

"I was looking for an opportunity to talk to you."

"M-Me?" Makoto said. This was not the dinner conversation that he had been expecting, but that did not mean that he disliked it.

"But since I was always surrounded by many people, we ended up graduating without having ever talked to each other. That's why that's one of my biggest regrets."

"But why me?"

"Well, do you remember the time that a crane wandered into the school pound?" she continued. "It was so big that the teacher had no idea what to do. But it was you that led it to the forest behind the school. You helped it find its way out."

Makoto was surprised to see her remember such an event. "Well, only because I was already in charge of taking care of the animals at school. They made me do it."

"Still, I was impressed," Sayaka said. "That was why I wanted to talk to you, even if it were only once. But I never imagined that this would be my chance."

"Yeah, it would've been better if we had met again at a train station. That would've made a nice dramatic reunion," he said. "But instead, it's this weird school."

"Maybe, but…" Sayaka smiled once more. "I'm sure that you'll help me find my way out, as you did with the crane. You'll save me. It's only intuition, but I still believe it."

Makoto was made speechless by what she had just said. He could hardly imagine himself, an average student, to be the one who would save her. He had no special talent and had lived life as it went by. Still, it was he that Sayaka most trusted. She must have seen something in him that he himself could not see. If she believed in him, then so must he.

"I'll do my best, I promise that," Makoto said. "I'll make sure it's more than intuition."

* * *

Makoto walked with Sayaka around the school. It had been a lovely evening, and ending it off with walking around with her was simply wonderful.

When they went to the gym entrance room, Sayaka pointed at the trophies in the glass case. "Isn't it amazing that this school has so many high achievers?"

"Well, it does have so many Ultimates as students," Makoto said. "But, you know, I'm only the Ultimate Lucky Student. I'm just a normal guy who'll never have his name up there."

"Oh, that's not true!" Sayaka said. "If you work hard enough like Taka, maybe you'll be one of them!"

"R-Really?" Makoto felt his face redden.

"Yes!" Sayaka giggled. "I believe in you, Makoto! Don't cut yourself short, just because you don't have a talent unlike us!"

Hearing those words lightened Makoto's heart even more. He smiled back at her, assuring her that her words had helped him.

It was then that Makoto noticed that beneath the shelf was an urn on which a town had been painted. The aesthetics reminded him of one of those Chinese vases that he had seen before. The urn had only white and blue colors, and yet they were enough to bring forth in his mind an image of a small town long ago whose folk lived simply and merrily.

"Hey, you know what, Makoto?" Sayaka said, smiling. "You should take it back with you to your room! It'll liven up your room a bit!"

"You think so?"

Makoto looked at it once more. It would give the room a less bland appearance, he guessed. After a few more seconds, he decided to take it back with him. If it made Sayaka happy, then he would gladly do so.

The two then went back to their rooms. After bidding her good night, Makoto went into his room and put the urn on his shelf. Looking at it now, it made a nice touch to his room. Maybe he should look around more and make his room feel more like _his_.

* * *

**It was kind of hard to write the Free Time event with Leon, given that there is so little that Makoto and company can do at this point. After all, the only fun rooms right now are the dining hall and the school store. It makes me wonder how in the world they managed to pass time back in Chapter 1. If it hadn't been for the motive videos, the first killing might have happened simply because the killer got so bored of what was available to the students. At least there was a bunch of more stuff for the characters to do back in DR2's and DRV3's Chapter 1.**

**Also, if you haven't done so already, I'd appreciate it if you could check out the SYOC fanfic I'm working on. I'm still accepting submissions!**


	6. Woe is Me for Believing: Part 3

It had been three days since the sixteen students had found themselves trapped in Hope's Peak Academy. Slowly, they had become used to their surroundings, and many had developed a daily routine in this hellish place. Of course, Makoto knew that none of them truly wanted to stay, but their investigations yielded nothing, and so they had no choice but to stay put.

During that time, Makoto talked with some of his classmates, wanting to get to know them more. He had spoken mostly to Sayaka; she was the only one with whom he had a prior connection. All the time that he was with her was nothing but lovely; despite their current circumstances, her being here was one of the few springs of hope that he could find.

This morning, however, Taka woke everyone up, insisting that they have a meeting. Makoto and the others were far from enthusiastic about it.

"Okay, it looks like everyone's here!" Taka said with his ever so loud voice. Makoto looked around for Kyoko, and sure enough, she was here. "Let's begin our very first 'breakfast meeting'!"

Most of the students then groaned, partly out of exhaustion, and partly out of the futility of this meeting. They had learned nothing new for the last few days, after all.

"I know I've said this before, but to get out of here, it is essential that we all cooperate with each other," he began. "And the first step is this breakfast meeting, which I hold to let us become friends and build trust! So henceforth, let's all meet here in the dining hall every morning after the morning announcement! Now then, let's eat!"

As the students began eating their breakfast, Taka started talking about an old tale that was meant to extol the virtues of group cooperation. Though he understood what Taka was trying to do here, that they had to do it so early in the morning made him all the less wanting to listen. And the sad part was that Taka himself did not seem to see this, even though the other gloomy faces should be enough to tell him.

"Uh, more importantly, has anyone, like, found any new clues?" Junko asked, interrupting Taka.

No one answered. Junko asked once more, nettled by the lack of development, but once again, no one answered. After a few seconds, however, Celeste, who sat across from her, leaned toward the fashionista, her expression grim.

"You are going to die."

"Huh?!" Junko said, backing away from her.

"What are you saying?" Mukuro said, moving nearer to her as if she were her shield.

"Nothing threatening, truly. If you can't stop yourself from showing weakness in front of others," Celeste said, "you will die. That is all."

"What the hell?!" Junko became the angriest that Makoto had seen of her. "Don't even freaking joke about that!"

"I am not joking." Celeste smiled, letting out a soft giggle. "Adaptability is survivability. Did I not say so earlier? Has your newly assigned cleaning duty not made you learn that?"

"Seems like you want to live here," Mondo said, his fists clenched. "And hell, more power to you. Raising a hand to a woman goes against what my brother taught me. But shit…" He slammed the table with his fist. "No way in hell am I living here! I'm getting out of here, I don't give a shit!"

"And how do you propose to do that?"

When Mondo could not answer, Celeste chuckled, amused. "As I thought."

"So... no one has any clues?" Junko said once again, crossing her arms while leering at her classmates.

"Well, one thing I can tell you is who's behind this," Mondo said, having calmed down. "Someone who's fucked up in the head, that's who."

Most of the students murmured in agreement. There was no doubt that only a sheer psychopath would want to host this "killing game" in the first place. But even taking that into account, Makoto could not fathom how the mastermind had managed to pull this off. Hope's Peak Academy was a highly prestigious school, and yet the mastermind had made all the staff disappear somehow. And there was the question as to why it was the sixteen of them that had been chosen for this; whatever had they done to displease the mastermind?

"B-But that doesn't r-really help us get out of here!" Toko said. "E-Even if we knew, I-I'm sure that the o-one behind this still w-wouldn't let us out!"

Few spoke in agreement, but the darting eyes and woebegone glances that the others gave showed that they thought likewise. Even if they did find out who the mastermind was, it was not as if the answer could let them magically escape this place. And there was the question of whether the mastermind was even here; it was very much possible that the mastermind was watching all of them somewhere far away.

"Guys, everything will without a doubt be okay!" Hina said reassuringly. "I'm sure help's on the way! I mean, we've been stuck here for a few days, right? No one's been able to contact us, so I'm sure they're getting worried. I bet the police is on the way!"

But suddenly, a childish laugh rang throughout the room. Everyone froze, having grown to that voice far too well already, for Monokuma had now appeared before them.

"The police? You're putting your faith in them?!" he said. "Seriously, you don't know what role the police have? All they're good for is being a foil, playing against a villain or anti-hero or evil organization. The bad guys come along and destroy them to show how badass they are. Sorry to break it to you, but you shouldn't rely on such unreliable losers! If you want to get out, all you have to do is kill!"

Hiro laughed. "I've got to say, you're pretty committed to this whole act! Pretty darn impressive, I tell you!"

A few of them looked at him, either shocked or disappointed at his lack of sense, but said nothing as Monokuma continued.

"Now, I'm pretty disappointed in you guys!" he said. "It's been a few days already, and yet no one's killed anyone! I thought you kids were lazy and selfish, but here you are, working together! I'm totally bored! But I've figured it out! All the ingredients are here: right people, right place. But something is missing! I couldn't understand what it was, but I've figured it out, and it's so simple that it's amazing I couldn't have figured it out earlier: the motive!"

Monokuma snickered some more. "There's something I want to show you! There's a video that each of you should see. Don't worry, it's appropriate for all ages! It's a special video for each of you that shows what's going on outside the school."

"Outside the school?" Makoto and a few others said.

"Heh heh, just watch it and find out for yourselves!" Monokuma said. "Here in this school, there's a specific place that has everything you need to watch the video."

"Good. That means we can watch the video," Kyoko said. "But before we do that, I'd like to know something: What are you? Why would do something like this? What do you want from us?"

Monokuma looked at her askance. "What do I want from you? That's simple."

Everyone waited for his answer with bated breath.

"Despair. That's all."

All, however, looked bemused rather than horrified. Makoto had not the foggiest idea what exactly Monokuma meant by "despair", nor did he see what worth it could possibly have, if he had to host a killing game to get it.

"If you want to know more than that, you'll have to figure it out by yourselves!" Monokuma continued. "You're free to uncover this school's hidden mystery, since it's pretty dang entertaining to watch you desperately look for answers!"

Monokuma disappeared, leaving the students confused yet again.

"Interesting…" Kyoko said. "He has no intention of stopping us from finding the truth."

"But what about the video he mentioned?" Sakura said. "I'm very curious to see what's on it."

There was only one room where they could watch videos. They headed over to the A/V room at the school area's first floor. The room was full of monitors that could be used to watch videos. On top of one of them was a cardboard box that had DVDs labeled with each student's name. Everyone took the one with his name and went over to a separate monitor to watch it.

Makoto sat down and stared at the screen. The video began showing, of all things, his parents and Komaru, his little sister.

_Wh-What the...?_ They were all at home, and his heart raced at the sight of his loved ones. But what were they doing in this video?

At first, each of them congratulated Makoto for getting into Hope's Peak Academy. Sure, it was only through lottery, but it was still a dream come true, and he was to do his very best. At least, that was what their message was supposed to say. By itself, this would give him hope and strength, and he would be motivated to do better in his ordinary school life.

But he was not living that life. And this was from Monokuma, so the dread inside him rose when he suspected that the video would not end yet.

The image of his loved ones disappeared into static. Once the image came back, however, they were gone, and the room was fully destroyed as if it were a warzone. The couch was torn, and the windows were fully shattered. Everything was presented with a sick purple hue.

"Makoto Naegi, accepted into Hope's Peak Academy," Monokuma's voice in the video said. "And his family, who supported such a lucky boy... But it seems like something's happened to this family's well-being! Oh boy, this is bad! What could have possibly happened to this family's well-being?!"

Then the image switched to a black screen that showed in big orange letters: "Look for the answer after graduation!"

Makoto was speechless at first, having to take a few seconds to understand what he had just seen. Once the images and Monokuma's rhetorical questions were ingrained in his mind, he stood up, outraged and fearful.

"Wh-What is this? What happened to everyone?!" he asked, wanting answers greatly. "_Goddamnit_!"

Makoto slammed his fist against the desk over and over again. "I… I have to get out of here! I have to get out of here, right now!"

The others too were shocked at what they had just seen, and the anger that they showed was far greater than Makoto's. Mondo and Leon swore at great length and agreed that the one behind this was a sick bastard, forgetting their differences for a moment, whereas the girls stood there trying to reassure themselves that this could be fake, Toko and Chihiro having the most trouble. Even Byakuya, among the more collected of the students, glared at his screen with a clenched fist. There was no doubt that everyone here was now full with fear and confusion.

"N-No way this is true!" Junko said, face growing paler.

"I… I do not understand..." Mukuro said, visibly confused for the first time.

But then he glanced toward Kyoko Kirigiri. She was the only one who stayed calm, even now.

"I see… So this is what he meant by motive," she said. "He wants to fuel our desires to leave so that we may be more likely to start killing each other."

"It is the classic prisoner's dilemma," Celeste said, having regained her cool, and offered a brief explanation on what it was. It sounded like something out of game theory, which Makoto guessed was in Celeste's expertise.

"Th-That sounds like us right now!" Toko said. "We all say that we're working together, but we're all afraid that there's a traitor among us!"

"N-Now, let's not jump to that ugly conclusion there!" Taka said, his voice nowhere as loud and authoritative as before. "I-I'm sure this is just a trap meant to sow division among us!"

"You say that, but maybe you want us to lower our guards, Mr. Ishimaru!" Hifumi said. "And when we drop our guards, you'll make your move! It's something that a cunning man like you would have us do!"

"Cunning" was the last thing that Makoto would describe Taka, but Hifumi had a point. It seemed all too easy to tell them to drop their guards, when the one telling them so might want to exploit it to his advantage.

"Everyone's really upset…" Chihiro said to Makoto. "I mean, how could anyone be calm right now? Why…? How can something like that even be? I just don't understand… I don't… "

At that point, Chihiro broke down in tears, which would have broken Makoto's heart if the video had not already done so. He wished that he had the words to make her feel better, but in truth, he was pretty upset right now. Something had happened to his family, and he needed to find out what it was at once.

"What was in your video, Sakura?" Makoto asked, seeing that she was among the calmest of the group.

"My family," she said plainly. A few raised their eyes upon her saying so; they must not have expected her to answer in the end. "But I'm not upset by what I saw. If you're overpowered, you must accept your death. That is my family's way. But still… I refuse to believe they would lose so easily. How…?"

Makoto turned toward Sayaka, who, however, had grown unusually pale and quiet.

"S-Sayaka?" Makoto saw none of the charm and beauty that had been in her. "A-Are you all right?"

"I... I need some time _alone_!"

Sayaka pushed past Makoto and ran out of the room, which deed left him speechless. He had never seen her like this and now felt highly concerned.

"I think we all need time alone," Celeste said. "We needn't stick around together. And I do have my own things to take care of. Goodbye."

Celeste too left the room. Though the day had only begun, Makoto felt tired from all the anger that had come out of him. He thought it best that he head back to his room. Still, he could not stop thinking about the fates of his parents and Komaru and how Monokuma had managed to get footage of them.

He passed by a classroom with an open door, and when he peeked inside, he found Sayaka inside, sitting on a chair with hands on her knees.

"Sayaka?" he asked. "A-Are you all right?"

Her skin remained as wan as it had become when she had seen whatever was on her video. All emotion that he had grown to see on her face was now gone, as if everything he had seen were only a mask.

"Y-Yeah… I'm all right," she said. "Actually… no. How could I be all right now? What did we do to deserve this? Why are all they doing all these terrible things to us? I want to leave! Let me get out of here right now!"

She thrashed about, despite Makoto's pleas for her to calm down. He had no choice but to grab her by the shoulder.

"Look, I understand how you feel right now. I'm pretty scared about what might have happened to my family," he said slowly. "But now more than ever we have to stay calm! This is exactly what they want. They want us to lose our composure and stop thinking rationally. I mean, those videos must be fake! Those things couldn't have happened without everyone making a big uproar about it!"

Makoto saw that he was trying to convince himself as much as her. He kept repeating those words in his head to get rid of the awful images that the video had put in his mind.

"As long as we work together," he said, "I'm sure we can find a way out. And help might come even before that."

"But…" she said. "What if there isn't a way out? What if help never comes?"

"Th-Then… I'll get you out of here myself, whatever it takes!"

As soon as he said that, Sayaka rushed toward him and put her head against his chest.

"S-Sayaka?"

"Please… help me…" she said, her voice shaking. "Why… Why is this happening to me? To kill or be killed… I can't take it anymore!" She raised her face up from his chest, her eyes full of tears. "Can I… Can I believe what you've said? That you'll help me get out, whatever it takes?"

"A-Absolutely!" he said without thinking.

"Makoto… You're the only one I trust. So please… Whatever happens, please always be there for me. I need you on my side…"

"O-Of course I'll be there for you!" Makoto said.

Sayaka stared at him for a few seconds, the tears in her eyes disappearing. "Thank you, Makoto. I think I can get through with this as long as you're with me."

The color in her face returned, restoring her beauty and emotion. He was glad to see her smile once again. This was the Sayaka that he knew.

Once she was fully calm, they headed back to the dorms, and by then, Sayaka seemed to have become her usual self again. Though Makoto was glad that Sayaka was all right, it was clear that the good mood from the other night had been clean destroyed by Monokuma.

* * *

The next morning, Makoto awakened to the usual announcement. As he got ready, he wondered how much a good night's sleep had helped the others. It was still shocking to think that his family had somehow been kidnapped or, worse, killed, but the mood and fever that had popped up right after the sixteen of them had watched their videos had lessened greatly. But with some time and rest, everyone should have calmed down and thought more rationally about this. Hopefully, the awkward silence that dominated yesterday's dinner session would not pop up again.

But when he left the room, he could already hear shouting coming from the dining hall. He rushed over there at once and saw that amid the students were Mondo and Leon bickering.

"What the hell's your deal, man?" Leon said, staring angrily at the delinquent. "I've already said I'm sorry!"

"Like hell a sorry's gonna pay for what you did!" Mondo yelled. "You think you can get away with it? Not with me, you son of a bitch!"

"Wh-What's going on here?" Makoto asked the bystanders. The only other students here were Sayaka, Taka, Chihiro, Hina, and Sakura.

"Um, well…" Sayaka said. "For breakfast, Leon said that he'd spell me this time for today's breakfast cooking, but…"

"Mondo complained that his food tasted funny," Sakura answered. "And since the rest of us had dishes that tasted fine, he thought that something funny was going on."

Makoto grew a little tense. Leon and Mondo had not had the best relationship so far, as shown when he had first met the two, and with how heated things had become, it had been only a matter of time until one of those two tried to take the other's life, or at least were accused of doing so.

"I wasn't trying to poison you, man!" Leon protested. "If it tasted bad, then I simply messed up, that's all."

"Don't you try to call it a mistake! I can tell you did it on purpose!" Mondo pointed at him. "Ever since you watched that video, you've wanted to get outta here, haven't you?!"

Leon widened his eyes. "Well, yeah, but I'm not actually gonna do it, stupid! I'm way above it, unlike you!"

"Oh, that's it!"

Mondo walked nearer and nearer to the baseballer, cracking his knuckles. Just as Leon got in a fighting stance, however, Taka ran between the two.

"You two must stop this at once!" he besought, extending his arms so as to stop them from stepping forward. "We are not to fight but to stand together as one!"

"Stand with that son of a bitch? Fuck no!" Mondo said back. "Can't believe you want me to let things go with that wannabe killer! You thinking of stopping me?"

Taka struggled to say the next word. It was clear that even if he wanted to do so, Mondo had the upper hand here, being the strongest man here. Meanwhile, Leon continued to taunt Mondo, looking not at all sorry for his mistake or attempted murder, as Mondo would have it.

"Enough, both of you!"

But it was Sakura, the strongest student here, that caught their attention.

"Taka is right. We cannot let this matter divide us," she said, which was enough to make Mondo look less prideful and less keen to pick a fight. "Leon, I suggest that you apologize for miscooking Mondo's dish. And Mondo, I suggest that you forget about this incident. Remembering it will only make you feel angry toward him, and we can have Sayaka always cook for us henceforth, if you still mistrust him."

The two men looked less than happy upon hearing her suggestions, but from her stern tone, neither appeared willing to argue with her.

"All right, all right…" Leon sighed as he shook his head. "Look, Mondo, I'm sorry that I messed up when cooking your dish. I won't do it again, ever."

"That's because you won't ever cook for me again," Mondo said. "But fine, apology accepted."

"There you go!" Taka said cheerfully. "I'm glad that you two have come to terms with each other!"

Despite that, however, Mondo and Leon looked unglad, their reconciliation having come only because it was Sakura that could single-handedly stop each of them the hard way. Deep down, the old feelings of resentment and hatred were still there, waiting to be unleashed at the untimeliest moment.

"I'm getting outta here," Mondo said. "Can't stand to be here any longer."

"Same for me!" Leon said bitterly.

The two then walked out, each rushing to outrun the other. Upon their departure, Taka let out a sigh of great relief.

"Thank you, Sakura!" he said. "Had you not stepped in, things definitely would've gotten ugly!"

"Yeah, I'm glad that no one ended up getting hurt," Chihiro said, showing a small gentle smile.

"It's no problem," Sakura said. "I'm thankful that they became cooperative once I interfered."

"Well, I hope that they stay that way," Hina said.

"Likewise!" Taka then faced Sayaka with a bit of concern on his face. "Sayaka, you still look a bit... shaken after yesterday's events."

"Oh, no, please, don't worry about me!" she insisted. "I-I feel a bit better, really. I shouldn't have let Leon cook in my stead. I should go—"

"No, no! This time, I'll cook!" he said. "Even if you say you're okay, I want you to feel fully refreshed before getting back to work! And I can assure you that unlike Leon, I am a pro at cooking!"

"I suggest that Taka be allowed to take your stead," Sakura said. "I can tell that you are still shocked by what you saw yesterday. It'll take some time for you to fully recover."

Sayaka said nothing at first, but a few seconds later, she gave a small nod.

"I… I think I get it," she said softly. "I should… do something else…"

It would take some time for her to force herself not to let Monokuma get to her with his evil trick, but it was the needful thing to do if Makoto wanted her not to be distraught once more. Thankfully, he had his classmates to help him on this as well, so if they stood together, they could withstand this and perhaps find another way to beat Monokuma.

* * *

A while later after breakfast, Makoto asked Sayaka whether she wanted to go walk with him around the school. This time, she declined, insisting that she wanted to stay in her room to rest. Thinking that she needed some time alone, Makoto then thought to head to the gym. He had not gone there since Monokuma had told them that they were now players of the killing game, but he needed a change of environment; there were only so many times that he could go to the same rooms again and again.

There, he found Hina and Sakura doing push-ups together. From their counting, they had done about a hundred, incredibly enough. Once they had stopped, Makoto greeted them.

"Hey, what's up?" Hina asked as they got up and drank what appeared to be energy drinks.

"Well, I just wanted to see what you were doing, that's all," Makoto said.

"Nothing much besides exercising, really," Hina answered." Sakura and I do it together after breakfast."

It was not surprising to see that the two had gotten along well. They shared their interests in sports, and their kind and caring personalities ensured that there would be little conflict between them. Seldom was Hina seen without Sakura when each of them had time to kill. It was rather sweet to see a supportive high school friendship that was remarkable here only because this was a killing game.

"Would you like to join us?" Sakura asked. "You could use a bit more muscle."

"Ah, no thanks." Though he exercised every now and then, Makoto imagined that he could hardly bear with what the two had in mind for him. "But you know, it's nice that even after what we saw yesterday, you're still keeping your routine."

"Well, we're not going to let Monokuma get to us!" Hina said. "Come what may, we'll keep doing what we do!"

Seeing the two of them like this gladdened Makoto. He had feared that someone like Hina might have become more worried and anxious because of the video, but with Sakura around, she would be all right and able to withstand Monokuma's temptations. It was swell to see friends like them support each other at a time like this.

_But what can I do to support Sayaka?_ Makoto wondered. He had promised her that he would find a way to get her out of here somehow, but it had been much easier to make a bold statement like that than to actually make it happen. Perhaps he should go for something less ambitious and more achievable for now and work upon that.

"You know what," Makoto said, "maybe a few minutes of exercising wouldn't kill me."

He could at the very least protect her from any harm that might befall her. But since he was far from being the strongest guy here, he needed to improve himself first. And moreover, after all that Sakura had done, it was only right that he accept her offer.

Sakura showed a small smile. "I'm glad to see you're more receptive now."

And so the two girls made Makoto do a series of exercises that were meant to last only a few minutes. At least, that was what he had intended; in truth, doing a hundred push-ups and sit-ups felt much longer than that. Every time he wanted to rest, Sakura bade him keep going instead, and her loud and mighty voice was enough to make him not want to disobey her. Once he finished the last sit-up, catching his breath, he keenly snatched the energy drink that Hina offered him, gulping it down.

"Trust me when I say that a pleasant feeling will soon come to you," Sakura said. "However tiring this may be for you, the sensation that comes when your muscles cool down is more than enough to tell you that it was worth it."

"Wh-Whatever you say…" Makoto said. At least he was not sparring with Sakura; even her lightest attack, he was sure, would send him off to bed at once.

* * *

**As you can see, the motive for this case is the same, but things will get pretty different in the next chapter, since the first killing will happen, and this, from what I can tell of alternative DR1 scenarios, is usually where the plot greatly diverges. I've already a good idea on how things will play out, so I now need to work on the investigation and the trial. Who do you think will be the first to go?**


	7. Woe is Me for Believing: Part 4

Dinner was rather uneventful. Leon and Mondo had come, but they made sure to sit at different tables. All the students made more of an attempt to go back to their usual routine of chatting, but Makoto suspected that deep down, a few of them were still anxious about what had happened to their loved ones. Whatever the case might be, he decided to keep appearances up and not bring the topic up at all. To make the others more anxious about it would be what Monokuma wanted, after all.

Later that night, Makoto and Sayaka walked to their doors, tired. At least she seemed to be getting better and nearer to her usual disposition; it had been only a day since they had last seen those horrible videos, and it was a miracle that no one had tried to kill another yet.

"Are you all right, Makoto?" Sayaka asked, as if she were the one in better health.

"Yeah, but…" Makoto sighed. "I can't stop thinking about the outside world, you know? If Monokuma got my family, and no one's been trying to rescue us, then what the heck is going on outside?"

"W-We can only guess," Sayaka said. "Hopefully, we'll be out of here soon. I-I don't want to think that no one's noticed what's going on here!"

After they bade each other good night, Makoto went back into his room. He wanted nothing more than a long rest and wished that everything that he had just seen were all a dream.

It would be nice if things could resolve themselves that way, but he could not but think about whether what would happen tomorrow. For most of his life, he had lived life as it had gone by, not thinking too much about the far future. The most that he had had to worry about had been only tests and school projects. Once he saw that he had nothing better to do, he took a quick shower. When nighttime came, he headed to bed, and for a moment, he slept, wishing to be away from this reality again.

But his rest ended abruptly when he heard knocking on his door. To his surprise, it was Mondo.

"Mondo! What's up?" Makoto asked, curious as to why the delinquent was looking for him.

"I've got something to talk to you about," he said, scowling. "Follow me."

Mondo turned around and headed to his room, which was directly opposite to Makoto's.

_What's up with him?_ Makoto thought. The last notable time when he had seen the delinquent, he had sworn to find a way out. Could this have something to do with it?

Makoto shut his door and headed into Mondo's room. Immediately greeting him were big flags that all showed the name of his gang, the Crazy Diamonds. A great black banner commemorating his gang leaned against the bathroom's adjacent wall. There were also a bunch of magazines on his bed, and hair care products on his shelf. It definitely gave the room a delinquent vibe, also raised the question as to how Monokuma had customized their rooms like this. After all, these were doubtless Mondo's belongings, so how had he gotten them?

"What's the matter?" Makoto asked.

"Look over there." Mondo pointed at his bed.

Makoto turned around, but all of a sudden, something that felt like a napkin was put over his mouth, and he could no longer breathe. In fact, for some reason, he grew sleepier and sleepier, and the biker himself held him back with his arms. He tried moving forwards, only for Mondo to tighten his grip on him.

"Sorry, pal," Mondo said, "but it's all part of the plan. Someone has to be it."

And a second or two later, Makoto's sight turned black.

* * *

Makoto woke up, only to find himself back in his room. He could have sworn that he had fallen asleep or something in Mondo's room, but no, there were no flags or hair care products. Instead, his room was as plain as plain could be, and he was lying on his bed.

If it had all been a dream, then why had he a slight headache right now? And come to think of it, what time was it now? Mondo had apparently awakened him sometime after nighttime began, but if it were morning, then he had missed the morning announcement.

This was something that he had to talk with the others about. He had to go ask Mondo about it later; now that he thought about it, he was sure that Mondo had knocked him out. It was definitely an underhanded move, and he would not let this be ignored.

He thought to take a shower first, however. He needed to get ready for his day as usual and meet up with Sayaka later. Hopefully, Junko would not be there; he did not mind her, but he preferred some alone time with Sayaka. The last time that that three of them had hung out together, she had gone on and on about her trip to the mountains, which tale felt as if it had taken days to finish.

Makoto rose a bit, only to feel a bit of pain from his chest, for some reason. He felt his jacket for anything odd, and when nothing came up, he ended up opening it and lifting up his shirt, only to widen his eyes and nearly start.

There, to his utter horror, were a few bandages covering cuts done on his chest.

_Wh-What the?!_ Makoto felt the bandages, only to wince upon touching the wounds. It did not hurt too badly, and the wounds appeared to be not very deep, but it was enough to make him start panicking about what had happened to him. Without thinking, he quickly felt his body's other parts, praying that these were the only injuries. Though he found that there were no other injuries, that was still not enough to let him rest easy. He had to find out _now_ what in the world had happened to him.

Only when Makoto got up from his bed, however, did he see that his room was an utter mess. The urn, which he had gotten from the gym entrance room, now lay broken on the ground. The table and the trash can nearby had been toppled as well. And most confusing and surprising of all, there was a small amount of blood on the floor. The more he looked at it, the more confused he became.

_Wh-What the heck?!_ Makoto thought. He was sure that he had not done this, even if he had no memory of it. _Was it… Mondo?_

For a moment, a spell of dizziness came to him, and he could do nothing but fall back on his bed, trying to make sense of what had happened last night. However hard he tried to remember, however, he had no memory of it. He must have been asleep at the time, but still, if he had been simply sleeping, then why were there bandaged wounds on his body?

Eventually, he found the will to get back up and find out what had happened. Lying in bed relieved him greatly, but it would get him nowhere at a time like this.

He slowly made his way to the bathroom door, making sure not to disturb anything in his room. He had to ask the others about this later, of course, and it was best that he leave the scene intact. Hoping that there had been no damage to it, he opened the door, only to freeze upon seeing what awaited him.

There, sitting by the opposite wall, a knife thrust into the chest, was Mondo Owada's body.

Makoto's eyes widened, his shock and confusion growing fast. For a moment, he thought that all of this was but a nightmare brought upon by exhaustion. The video of his family had taken much out of him, and he was simply asleep. That was the simplest explanation.

But the more he looked at the body, the more he found it harder to deny what lay before him. The dead delinquent's sight, the blood covering the bathroom walls, the sheer pain and shock etched onto his eyes, and the bloody knife wormed themselves into his mind, blocking all else. He screamed, no longer able to tell himself that what was in front of him was not real.

_Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, Mondo's dead, Mondo's dead, Mondo's dead!_

Trembling, he backed away from the body, as if it were a mad hound about to bite him. He ran out of the room and—

"Good morning, Makoto!" Taka stood by his own door, beaming. "Nice to see you're awake as well! Let's head to the dining hall together—"

"There's no time for that!" Makoto yelled, not worrying about how weird he looked. "There's a dead body in my bathroom!"

"Wh-What? What are you talking about?"

Makoto, not wanting to explain it in words, quickly took Taka to his bathroom, where the body still lay. As soon as he saw the bloody sight, Taka screamed with so much fright that he sounded more like a ghost ready to attack him.

"I… I've got to wake the others up at _once!_" Taka ran out of the room, still screaming.

Though hearing Taka's frantic knocking, Makoto focused on gazing at the dead body, unable to stop thinking about how the body had been full of life only hours ago. He had talked to the man and had hoped to know him more, for they were classmates, however bad this situation now might be. Deep down, he had thought that Mondo was not that bad a man. But now his body lay here, all life wrongfully bereft from it. Someone had taken it from him, which was enough to give him another spell of dizziness.

What broke him out of his spell, however, was the sound of a bell from the monitor.

"A body has been discovered!" It was Monokuma's voice. "Everyone, please gather at Makoto Naegi's room. This is important, so be sure not to miss it!"

The announcement ended, leaving him confused.

"Are you all right, Makoto?" It was Kyoko, who looked unusually unfazed by the bloody sight. Standing behind her was Byakuya, who looked at the scene more seriously than fearfully. How long had the two been here? Regardless, he had only one answer for her.

"No!" Of course he was not all right. A dead body of one of his classmates was in his bathroom, for crying out loud. "M-Mondo's dead! I… I… I don't want to believe it, but it's true!"

Soon, all the others were now here, utterly aghast at the sight. It took them roughly a few minutes for them to gather.

"Holy crap, what the hell is this?!" Hiro exclaimed.

"N-No! Th-This… This can't be true!" Chihiro said, covering her mouth.

"Mondo's… dead?" Junko said. "N-No way! A-Are you, like, sure about that?"

Kyoko approached the body and touched it, her face showing no fear or disgust at all. Some of the students gasped when she touched it without any hesitation.

"No, he's definitely dead," she said calmly. "He's been dead for the last few hours, it seems."

Makoto frantically looked around and saw Sayaka among the crowd. But when he reached out to her, she only responded with a look of confusion and suspicion.

"M-Makoto…" she said fearfully. "Did you…?"

"Wait… No!" Makoto said, realizing what she and a few others now thought. "It's not like that at all! I only—"

But before Makoto could explain himself, appearing by the bedroom door was Monokuma, their self-called headmaster. The students gasped once more upon seeing the bear; it still took time to remind themselves that he could apparently appear anywhere in this school. As soon as black and white entered his sight, Makoto felt his anger rise threefold.

"Good morning, students! I was expecting someone to make a move after I gave you my gift," Monokuma said, as cheerful as ever. "And it took, what, about two days! I was expecting one of you to make a move earlier, but you can't win them all, I guess."

"You!" Makoto yelled, pointing at him. "You did it! You killed Mondo!"

"Who, little old me?" Monokuma said. "Hate to break you, but I don't attack anyone unless that person has violated a school regulation! And I assure you that despite being a no-good delinquent, Mondo did nothing that went against the rules, other than his impolite attack on me the first day."

"Then who did it?" Mukuro asked. "Who killed him?"

"Oh, come on! You already know the answer!" Monokuma said, raising his paw. "The one who killed him… is one of you!"

No one could say anything back to the bear. The thought had already entered their heads, but for him to say it aloud and confirm what they had most feared bereft them of any words.

Taka stared at the body, mouth agape while tears flowed from his wide red eyes. A few others were crying as well; they might not have liked him, but he too was a man who had loved ones and dreams to fulfill, and the life of a fellow man had now been taken from them. Even Leon, who clearly had had a low opinion of the biker, could hardly say anything, his face looking as if it had never shown any happiness at all.

"Don't you remember what I told you at the very beginning?" Monokuma said. "The only way to escape is to murder one of your classmates. And one of you decided to kill Mondo Owada so as to graduate!"

"No!" Makoto was not thinking about what he was saying, but he did not care. "You're lying! You have to be! You're the one who trapped us here!"

"You just don't get it, do you?" It was Byakuya, who was unusually calm, as if having expected this to happen. "It's in the game's rules. The one who killed him simply thought it risky enough a move to do it."

"Exactly!" Monokuma said. "Now that all fifteen of you are here, I can say at last that someone here is a killer!"

All of them began to look at one another, eyeing their peers with fear, suspicion, and mistrust. Some of them protested, showing their unbelief that not only had someone killed a fellow human, but also the killer now stood among them.

"But who?!" Taka said wrathfully, tears flowing from his eyes. "Who thought to kill a fellow student?!"

"More importantly," Byakuya said, "let's suppose that you're right. One of us killed Mondo. Then does that mean the killer may now graduate? That's what it says in the Graduation Clause, is it not?"

"Puhuhuhu!" Monokuma covered his mouth with one of his paws. "How naive you are to think that's all there is to it, when we haven't gotten to the real thing yet! Let me explain to you the second part of graduation, now that we have a dead student to work with! You do remember Regulation 6, do you not?"

"'Anyone who kills a fellow student and becomes "blackened" will graduate, unless they are discovered'," Celeste said. "Are you talking about the second half?"

"Bwahaha! Right on the mark!" Monokuma said. "Anyone who kills a fellow student also has to get away with it! And of course, we need a system to see whether it's actually been gotten away with! And that system is… the class trial!"

"Wh-What?" Sayaka said, face whitening a bit. "Class… trial?"

Monokuma then explained to them how the class trial worked. It seemed like any ordinary class trial that one might find in an elementary school, but when Monokuma mentioned "punishment", the students looked at him fearfully.

"B-By 'punishment'," Chihiro said, tears flowing from her eyes, "y-you don't mean…"

"Execution!" Monokuma said. "Beheading, hanging, lethal injection! Once you get it, it's all over for you! No second chances at the game of life!"

Almost all the students gasped in horror at the rules that they now played under. Not long after, Monokuma updated everyone's handbook, so the Regulations now reflected the procedures of the class trial.

"Th-That is totally crazy!" Junko said. "W-We have to figure out which of us, like, murdered him?!"

"That's the rule, missy," Monokuma said. "You're not exempt from it, even if you're horribly traumatized by whatever you've just seen! Now then, to help you with your investigations…" Monokuma showed them a small black book that had the number 1 on it. "This little file has all the information I've gathered about the death in question. I call it… the Monokuma File! Since not all of you are experts at examining dead bodies, I've done all the hard work for you! It has what you need to know about the circumstances and cause of death!"

_Not all of you?_ Makoto thought, confused by what he meant. As far as he could tell, none of them had had experience in that.

"How could you figure all that out?" Hifumi asked after everyone got a Monokuma file.

"Oh, that's easy!" he said. "The surveillance cameras picked everything up! And that's how I know who killed Mondo Owada as well!"

"And thus you can see whether our answer is correct," Kyoko said. "In a way, that's somewhat comforting."

"Now you're getting it!" the bear said. "And there's something else you should know: you remember that I announced that a body had been discovered? Well, the announcement only plays when three people or more find the body."

Makoto wondered what the purpose of that particular guideline was, but he dreaded to think of the fun that Monokuma had with the rules in the first place.

"Now then, if you want to do well, put all your effort into your investigation for the next few hours! And I'll make an announcement when it's time for the class trial!"

Laughing, Monokuma disappeared, the fifteen students now filled with utter horror at what had been told them. Right now, in this very room, stood the murderer of one of their fellow classmates, and they were expected to figure out who it was. And if they did not, everyone but the guilty would die here. Makoto wanted to say something, but the words would not leave his mouth. Everything was just too horrible to accept.

"Well? What do you plan to do now?" It was Kyoko Kirigiri, who once again looked unfazed at recent events. "Now's no time to wallow in your sadness. We don't have the luxury of standing around all day deciding who doesn't deserve our trust."

"Yes," Celeste said, looking not at all sorrowful that a fellow classmate was now gone. "Mourning the dead is nothing but a waste of our precious time."

"What the heck?!" Hina said. "How could you say that?! Don't you feel sad that one of us is dead right now?!"

Celeste sighed, looking more annoyed than saddened. "Haven't I told you? He who cannot adapt dies. And it seems my gamble was right on the mark. Mondo Owada got what he had earned."

"What an awful thing to say!"

"Awful, but not wrong." Celeste gave her usual smile. "The sooner you accept it, the longer you will live."

"P-Please… Stop arguing," Chihiro said, but neither of them had heard her, for the two girls continued their petty bickering.

"Enough," Kyoko said, glancing at the corpse. "Our main objective right now is to expose the killer. If we do not, then we'll all die here."

"Th-The killer?" Toko said, looking away from the body. "I-Isn't it obvious who killed him? Th-The one living h-here, of c-course!"

Everyone glared at Makoto.

"W-Wait, I didn't kill him!" Makoto said. "I only found the body!"

"Ah, yes, it happened to appear in your bathroom, just like that," Byakuya scoffed.

"Everyone, don't rush to conclusions yet," Kyoko said, among the few who seemed not to have already made up their minds. "We cannot say for sure that Makoto's guilty without an investigation first."

"Yeah, we may as well check everything first," Leon said. "Makoto doesn't seem like the kind of guy to do this, if you ask me!"

"I agree," Mukuro said. "At a time like this, we cannot afford to be lazy and make a judgment that quickly."

All the others resigned themselves to the lack of choice that they now had in the matter. Right now, Makoto was most concerned about getting his name cleared.

_Mondo… We'll find your killer, I promise you!_ Makoto thought.

And thus began the investigation.

* * *

**Well, here's the first murder! Does it surprise you to see that the first victim is Mondo? From a meta perspective, it's kind of obvious, given the increased amount of focus on him in the last few chapters, and first-case victims are always built up to be significant in some way. In the game, Sayaka is the only one who already has had a connection to Makoto, and the game obviously tries to make her look like Makoto's assistant, to the point that it even suggests that you hang out with Sayaka when introducing the Free Time system.**

**Anyway, the ramifications of this are pretty obvious; Kiyotaka will never become bros with Mondo, and Chihiro will not be killed by him. And w****ith Mondo's death, there go all the Mastermind Mondo theories you may have had.**

**Also, I've begun work on my SYOC fic, so if you're interested, you can check it out!**


	8. Woe is Me for Believing: Part 5

First, there was the Monokuma File to read. Makoto hated that he must take the crazy bear for his word, but his complaints had already been said and had done him nothing. He opened it and read it aloud.

"The victim is Mondo Owada. The time of death is estimated to be around midnight. The body was discovered in Makoto Naegi's dormitory room about ten minutes after morning. All evidence suggests that the death happened in the bathroom. The cause of death was a single stab wound to the abdomen. Death appears to have been instant. There are no other wounds found on his body. Ever since the blade was inserted, the knife has not been taken out."

"W-W-Wait… Hold on now!" It was Yasuhiro, who was now clutching his hair with a frantic expression. "Y-You mean all this is real?! None of this is a joke?!"

Once all nodded, the fortune teller shrieked, walking about frantically. "H-Hell no! Let me out of here at once!"

"You're getting that _now_?" Toko said, irked and glancing away from the body. "I-If you want to leave so badly, then help us find the killer wh-while I go back to my room."

"And why aren't you helping?" Byakuya asked.

"I-I can't stand the sight of b-blood! I-If I look at i-it, I f-faint!"

"Before we do anything, however," Kyoko said, "we need to do something about securing the crime scene."

"You're thinking of putting someone on guard duty," Byakuya said, "so that no one may disturb the area, aren't you? After all, we're done for if the culprit destroys the evidence."

The group then agreed to make Sakura and Mukuro the guards of the crime scene. Afterwards, the students split up to investigate other places that might be linked to Mondo's murder. A few of them had gone to Mondo's room, which Monokuma had unlocked for them. The only ones who remained besides the two guards were Sayaka and Kyoko.

"Makoto…" Sayaka said, looking skeptically at him. "I… I don't want to believe that you're the killer. You really didn't do it, right?"

"Of course not!" Makoto said.

"Then what happened here?" Sayaka asked. "This is your room, so you should know."

"Well… I don't know, if truth be told." Makoto then told the two everything that he could remember about last night. "And, well… there's something else you should see."

With a bit of hesitance, Makoto lifted up his shirt and let the two girls see the bandaged wounds on his chest. Sayaka let out a horrified gasp, whereas Kyoko stared at them, almost as if entranced by them.

"A-Are you all right?" Sayaka asked.

"Y-Yeah, but I don't think—_Ow!_"

Kyoko had touched the wounds without even warning Makoto. Even though the pain was not that severe, that did not mean that it did not feel as if a spike had just pierced his skin. It grew even worse when Kyoko peeled off the bandages one by one and looked more and more at his exposed wounds. Meanwhile, Sayaka watched her wordlessly, as if astounded by how cold and methodical she was.

"Hmm… I see…" Kyoko said as she put the bandages back on. "The wounds were not inflicted deep enough to worry you greatly. Given a few days, they'll heal without any problems."

Even though he had already figured that out, it was nice to hear it from her. There was something about her that made everything that she said reassuring.

"Still, it interests me greatly why your wounds came to be," Kyoko said. "I highly doubt that the one who dealt you them wanted to kill you. If that had been the case, the damage would have been much greater."

If that was so, then it only made things even more confusing. Not only did Makoto not know who had given him these wounds, but he also could not see what they had aimed to do.

"Anyway, what happened after you woke up?" Kyoko asked.

"I… I went to the bathroom and found Mondo's body. Then I headed outside and found Taka," he said. "And, well… you can guess what happened next."

"I see... It seems that Mondo used something on you to knock you out," Kyoko said. "That explains why you have no account of the events that happened here."

"Y-You believe me?" Makoto knew that most of his classmates mistrusted him now, since it seemed unbelievable that a murder happened here without his knowing it.

"It's only something for me to keep in mind. Nothing else," she said before turning around and looking elsewhere in the room.

"Um… Makoto, I don't really like to think that you're the culprit," Sayaka said. "Maybe if we look around, we'll find something that shows someone else did it!"

It relieved him to know that Sayaka was by his side. With her help, he would find the true killer, the one who had framed him for this crime. First things first, he thought about why and how Mondo had come to his room after knocking him out. He had nothing valuable to steal, after all.

"Maybe he thought you had something important?" Sayaka suggested. "Even if he was mistaken, he still did it under that impression."

As for how, he had had the key on him when he had gone to Mondo's room. It was plain to see that Mondo could have used that key to get in here. Makoto felt his pockets and found the key in there. Though it was nice that it had not been lost, it meant that Mondo or the true killer must have put it back on him.

_But if there was someone else here,_ he thought, _and if that person killed Mondo, then why didn't they kill me as well? Was it that one person was enough to kill? Either way, I'm glad I'm not dead..._

Now, it was time to look around the room. The amount of damage done had been small, and yet that his room was now a crime scene saddened him. Even after this case should be done, he would have to live with the fact that this killing game could go on at any time and any place.

Right off the bat, he saw that the urn that he had put on his shelf the other day had been destroyed, its pieces lying on the floor. Given that his room was a mess, he guessed that Mondo or the killer might have broken it during a struggle of some kind. There was even a bit of blood on the pieces' beautiful blue and white colors.

"Hmm… That's weird," Sayaka said. "You'd think that the blood got onto the pieces after the urn fell, but all the blood is on the outside. The backs of the pieces don't have any blood at all."

Makoto looked at the pieces once more, amazed to see that Sayaka was right. At a time like this, he was thankful that he had another pair of eyes to find things that he might have missed. In any case, what did the blood's location mean?

"Hey, Makoto," Sayaka said. "It's just occurred to me that there's a trash room available. Isn't it possible that the killer got rid of evidence with it?"

"No." This time, it was Mukuro. "Only my sister has access to the trash room. There's a gate that stops anyone from going in. The killer couldn't have disposed of any evidence with it."

"Unless the killer's Junko."

The mentioning of her name in that sentence must have ticked Mukuro off, since she looked at Sayaka with an irritated expression.

"My sister is _not_ the killer," Mukuro said sternly. "Of that I am sure."

"But how?"

"I stayed with her in her room the whole night," Mukuro answered. "She told me that she wanted me to stay over for the night. Ever since she saw the video, she's been feeling uneasy."

"Huh, really…" Makoto said, remembering Mukuro's account of last night. "Well, thanks for telling us that. We now know you two are innocent."

It then occurred to him that the killer might have used his toolkit. He opened his drawer and found that it indeed was open. The screwdriver had been set by it, and it was clear that it had been used. Though Makoto had no idea as to why it had been used, he nonetheless made sure to keep a note of it.

He then looked at the lint roller. There was much less of it than before, and so the floor was fully clean now. Makoto had not cleaned his room lately, so someone else must have used it, but what was the reason? Makoto called out to Kyoko, wanting to hear what she thought about the case, only to find her examining the floor closely while she was down on her knees.

"What are you doing?" Makoto asked, a little confused.

"Isn't it obvious?"

"No, not really…"

"I'm searching."

"Searching? Did you lose a contact or something?"

Makoto saw how dumb that sounded upon saying it, but there was no taking it back. Anyway, she was searching his room that closely, as if she were a professional at this. It only made him more curious about what her talent was.

"She's like one of those girls, don't you think?" Sayaka asked. "The one who's always cool and distant, like the ones you see in TV."

"Maybe… I still can't tell what she is, though," Makoto answered. "Maybe… an assassin?"

Sayaka giggled. "An Ultimate Assassin? That'd be funny… and terrifying, too."

Not long after, Kyoko stopped searching and stood up straight. "Are you a clean freak, Makoto?"

"Huh? No, I don't think so. Why?"

"Interesting," she said with a slight smile. "I've noticed something unusual. There's not a single strand of hair on the floor. Not one hair from the victim or from you, even though you've been living here."

"But I've never used the lint roller, so someone else must've used it."

"So in other words, someone came in and cleaned your room without your knowledge," Kyoko said. "I should imagine that it was the killer, who wanted to hide all traces of their presence here."

That was most likely the answer, but since all evidence of that had been erased, it did not take him any closer to the killer's identity.

"Oh, yeah, there is one thing you may want to know," Makoto said. He had a feeling that Kyoko might know whether it was important. He explained to her the problem with the frame of his bathroom door.

"So the door doesn't quite fit the frame, huh?" Kyoko said. "Then even if someone did not know about this, then they would unwittingly lock the door just by closing it."

"So you don't really need to know about the doorframe to lock the door," Makoto said. "But opening it would be another thing."

"And did you tell anyone about this?"

"No, only Monokuma and I knew about it," Makoto said. "And I don't think Monokuma would've told anyone about my bathroom door."

The bathroom door's knob was now broken. Since no one else had known about the trick to open it up, someone, most likely the true killer, must have been forced to use something to break the doorknob and go inside. But what could it be?

The next thing that he must do was examine at Mondo's body. Though to put it that way made it sound all nice and simple, in truth, he could still hardly stand looking at it. It was a constant reminder that one of his classmates was gone, and that another would soon go the same way.

"I… I have to do it," he told himself. "I can't give up now. I have to find out who did all of this!"

Taking a deep breath in, Makoto at last willed himself to enter the bathroom and examine Mondo's dead body.

The murder weapon, a knife, had been thrust right into his chest. Makoto had no doubt whatsoever that it had taken only one stab to end his life.

"The blade is about 1.5 inches wide," Kyoko said, having taken it out. "I say that it matches a typical kitchen knife."

"A kitchen knife, huh?" Makoto said. "Sayaka, do you recognize the knife?"

"Oh, I've seen it in the kitchen," Sayaka answered. "So the killer must've taken it from there, right?"

It appeared that way since it made the most sense, but Makoto was hesitant to say for sure.

"Hey, Makoto," Sayaka said. "I think there's something in Mondo's hair."

Sayaka pointed at what seemed to be a few blue and white shards stuck in his hair. Makoto immediately recognized them to be from the urn that was now broken. Unlike the pieces outside, the ones in his hair were much bloodier. Given the greater amount of blood here, however, he was not too surprised to find them so.

_Still… why are these pieces in his hair?_

Makoto then noticed that on Mondo's neck were a few bruises. They looked unsettlingly red, and the imprints looked as if the injuries had been due to choking. But that was odd; Mondo had died from being stabbed, so the killer must have had the knife on their person. In that case, why would the killer try to choke him?

"I see…" Kyoko said, showing confidence in her smile. "That clears up a few things. Well, goodbye for now."

Kyoko abruptly left. Makoto wanted to stop her and talk to her some more, but he sensed that she was not one to answer his every question.

"What now, Makoto?" Sayaka asked.

"I think I have an overview of what happened here," Makoto answered. "Mondo brought me back here for whatever reason, using the key that I had. Then the killer somehow got in and tried to attack him. They ended up cornering him in the bathroom and killing him."

"That seems like the likeliest order of events," Sayaka said. "But we still don't have any definite clues as to who did it, right?"

Unfortunately, nothing he had seen gave him any ideas. The killer could have been any of the other students.

"We should go to Mondo's room," Makoto said, thinking of no better place to check out. "That's where I got knocked out by him. Maybe there'll be a clue there."

* * *

Standing in Mondo's room were Hifumi and Junko. The room had looked the same as Makoto recalled, but the owner now gone, it was rather saddening to see that no one would ever make use of it ever again.

"Oh, hey, Makoto, Sayaka," Junko said upon seeing Makoto and Sayaka. "Makoto, if it helps, I, like, don't think you're the culprit."

"Thanks," Makoto said. It was nice to see another of his classmates on his side.

"Hmph. Don't be fooled, Miss Enoshima," Hifumi said. "Perhaps Mr. Naegi's pretending to be weak to lower our guards. I bet he's come here to destroy evidence!"

"No, that's not it at all!" Makoto said, irked by Hifumi's wild guessing. "Have you guys found anything?"

"A bunch of stuff," Junko answered. "There were, like, tons of crumpled notes. They were, like, pretty hard to read, what with his awful handwriting."

Makoto took out one of the crumpled notes in the bin and read it, only to find it tedious to decipher what exactly Mondo had written. Apparently, in this note, he had complained of how cruddy it had been not to have his ride with him. Besides the notes, however, there was also a napkin that gave off an odd smell, as if some kind of chemical had been applied on it. Come to think of it, last night, Mondo had knocked him out with a napkin soaked in something. Seeing that there were no other napkins here, he was nearly certain that this was the same napkin.

As there was nothing else to examine here, the two headed back out to the hallway, after which they spotted Leon standing by his door. He had not taken the revelation well, looking down at the floor with a highly disturbed expression.

"Man, I didn't expect things to turn out this way," Leon said to them. "You know I didn't like the dude, but come on, I didn't think he'd go kick the bucket."

"I wish that were the same for all of us," Makoto said, "but you heard what Monokuma said. One of us is the killer."

"Well, you've got to believe me when I say I didn't do it!" Leon insisted.

"But then again, that's what the killer would say as well," Sayaka pointed out. "Maybe we should try something else. Did you see anything weird last night?"

"Last night?" Leon rubbed his head. "Yeah… come to think of it, I did! Around the start of nighttime, just as I was heading back to my room, I saw Mondo walking over to the school area!"

"Really?" Makoto raised his eyes a bit. "Wh-What for?"

"Don't know, man. I thought he was just taking a walk at the time," Leon said. "And I didn't want to stick my nose into his business. I couldn't care less about the guy… well, when he was alive, I mean. Now that he's dead… man, I just don't know what to feel about this."

Though Leon's account did not help him in finding out the killer, it did at least give Makoto a better understanding of Mondo's movements last night. Now if only he could find out exactly where Mondo had headed, then he might make a breakthrough in this case.

"Makoto," Sayaka said, "maybe we should check out the kitchen. Kyoko said that the murder weapon was a kitchen knife, so maybe the killer took it from there."

And so the two headed over to the dining hall, where Celeste sat by herself drinking some tea.

"Celeste, what are you doing?" Makoto asked.

"I'm relaxing myself, of course," she answered. "I felt myself wanting a cup of tea, so I brewed myself a cup."

"Still, shouldn't you be investigating?" Sayaka asked.

Celeste chuckled. "Certainly not. If we should fail to uncover the blackened, I certainly do not want last night's cup of tea to be my last."

That was an incredibly silly reason not to do any work for the investigation, but sensing that nothing he would say could make her budge, Makoto thought it best that he leave her be. In the meantime, he headed over to the kitchen and saw that one of the knives was missing. Had it been missing from the very beginning?

"There are usually five knives," Sayaka said, once again using her amazing intuition to read his mind, "so someone must have taken it earlier."

"Really? Then…" Makoto walked over to Celeste, who appeared nearly finished with her tea. "Celeste, you said you were here last night. Did you notice that one of the knives was missing from the kitchen?"

"As a matter of fact, I did," she answered. "I was with Hifumi, in fact. We headed to the kitchen last night, I brewing myself some tea. Then I finished drinking my tea here, and we both headed back to the kitchen, only to find that one of the knives was missing."

Makoto now felt much more relieved from hearing this. Since Celeste and Hifumi had been at the dining hall while drinking her tea, they could tell everyone that they had not seen him going to the kitchen last night.

* * *

"Have you two uncovered anything?" Makoto asked Taka and Hina, both of whom he were by the school store.

"Hmm… Not really," Hina answered. "We looked all over the classrooms, the AV room, and the school store, but we found nothing."

"Then did either of you see Mondo doing anything weird last night?" Sayaka asked.

"Well… Not last night exactly, but it was yesterday afternoon," Taka answered, pondering. "Hiro told me that he'd seen Mondo at the AV room. He said that Mondo had been there for a long while."

"And then what happened?"

"Well, Hiro and I headed over to him at once! I couldn't very well let that suspicious activity go unchecked! Once I confronted him, I saw that he was watching the DVD that Monokuma had given him."

"He was?" Makoto said.

"Yeah! I told him to stop it, since it was clearly making him worse and worse, but he wouldn't listen!" Taka then clenched his fists. "That is why I… I ended up breaking his DVD!"

"You _broke_ it?" Hina said, amazed.

"Well, I had no choice if I wanted him to listen to me!" Taka explained. "Mondo got rather angry, but thankfully, Hiro and I got him to let it go!"

Though it had happened way before the actual killing, Makoto thought that Taka's account of the confrontation between him and Mondo might be helpful during the class trial. And Taka had Hiro to back up his account, so he was sure that he was not lying.

"Oh. one more thing!" Hina said. "Sayaka, you haven't opened your sewing kit, right?"

"Uh, no, I haven't," she answered. "Why do you ask?"

"Well, it occurred to me that a sewing kit might've been involved in the crime," Hina explained. "I've asked all the girls, and they say that theirs haven't been opened."

"And I've done the same for us men and our toolkits!" Taka said. "All of them say that their toolkits haven't been opened!"

Nice as it was to know that, Makoto could not help but wonder whether one of them was lying about it. After all, a toolkit or a sewing kit might have been involved in the crime, and it would be advantageous for the killer to lie about it.

"Speaking of that, what's in the sewing kit, anyway?" Makoto asked.

"Oh, just a pair of scissors, needles, and thread," Hina answered. "The scissors looked awfully sharp, so even if I wanted to use the kit for anything, I don't think I would even touch them. I don't want to accidentally give myself a cut."

With how Monokuma wanted them to use the tools he had given them to kill, it was no surprise that there would be something up with the sewing kit as well. And he hated to admit it, but Monokuma had succeeded; the killer had used his toolkit for some reason, and right now, he must figure out why.

Makoto and Sayaka then headed over to the nurse's office, which did not look any different from how Makoto had remembered it. Chihiro appeared to be checking out the shelves.

"Chihiro, what are you doing?" Makoto asked.

"Ah!" The programmer turned around at once. Makoto could see that in her hands appeared to be a note. "Oh, I'm, uh, only looking for something. You see, I found this note in the trash can here, and it said something rather… strange."

Chihiro then gave Makoto the note, which looked rather crumpled.

"'There are some chemicals on the bottom-right shelf. Use the ones in the purple containers,'" Makoto read, finding it rather easy to read because of the rather neat handwriting. "'They can knock out anyone in a matter of seconds.'"

"K-Knock out?" Sayaka said with a hint of horror.

"Chihiro, are the chemicals still there?" Makoto asked.

She shook her head. "All the bottles are still here, but a few of them are empty."

"Huh… Interesting…"

Makoto felt that he had a better understanding of what had happened last night. He was thankful that Mondo and the killer had unwittingly left enough clues for him to piece together a more exact sequence of events. With that knowledge, he could prove himself innocent and, hopefully, find out which of them was the blackened.

"Oh, and there's one more thing," Chihiro added. "I... saw Mondo two nights ago, the night we got those videos."

"You did?" Sayaka asked. "When exactly?"

Chihiro pondered a bit. "I think I saw him around the beginning of nighttime. I was going back to my room when I saw him going to the school area. He was holding a DVD in his hands. When I asked him about it, he said that he was only going to watch it a bit. I didn't really think much about what he was doing, but now that this is going on..." She wiped away one of her tears. "I thought that if I told you guys, it'd help you somehow."

Well, that was quite odd. Had the contents on Mondo's DVD concerned him enough for him to go watch it again? Or had there been something more to it? Strange as it might be, Makoto could not see how exactly that could help him; if Chihiro had seen him last night, it would be something, but given that Mondo had been alive last morning, its importance seemed rather small. Still, it was more information about Mondo's actions, and he would be all the worse for it if he had not been told.

"Ah... Well, thanks, Chihiro," Makoto said. "Every bit helps now, so I'm glad you've told us this."

As if on cue, the bell rang the all too familiar chime, which made everyone freeze. The monitor in the room turned on, showing Monokuma.

"Erm, so ah… I'm getting tired of waiting," he said. "What say we just get started, hm? It's time for the long-awaited… class trial! Now then, allow me to appoint a proper location for the proceedings. Please go through the red door on the 1st floor of the school! Puhuhu. See you soon!"

* * *

All fifteen students gathered at the room that Monokuma ordered that they go to. Makoto looked at his peers' faces and saw that each looked as uneasy as they were, save for Kyoko and Byakuya. Many of them looked away as soon as they noticed that Makoto was looking toward them.

_So they've already made up their minds,_ Makoto thought, noticing how many of them were eyeing him.

Sayaka said nothing, but surely she knew what he was thinking. After all, she had amazing intuition. If worse came to worst, Makoto hoped that he could turn to his assistant for help.

The monitor turned on, revealing the bear.

"Puhuhu… Is everyone here? Okay then…" he said. "Please board the elevator in front of you, which will transport you to the courtroom, where your fates will be decided. Puhu. I'll meet you all down there. I'll be waiting…"

The monitor turned off, giving Makoto no comfort at all.

"Are you scared?" Kyoko asked Makoto.

"O-Of course I am!" Makoto answered. He was the main suspect, and he had no idea on what Monokuma had readied for them.

"Then you must remember: it's up to you to uncover the mysteries surrounding this case yourself," she said. "You're the best one to stand up for you."

Makoto, gathering as much courage as he could, headed into the elevator with everyone else, after which it shut and began going down.

No one said a word until the elevator stopped. When the doors opened, Taka was the first to leave, everyone else then slowly following after him. They found themselves in a room that looked like a king's, the walls covered with dark-blue checkered wallpaper, the connecting chambers covered with red curtains. There was a golden ring built in the center of the room, partitioned into sixteen witness stands. The floor was checkered, showing the same colors as their captor and judge.

"Puhuhuhu! You've come at last!" There, sitting at the throne placed near the ring, was Monokuma himself. "What do you think? Doesn't it feel like a true courtroom? It's like a Hollywood film set, right?!"

"Tacky," Leon muttered.

"All right now, students, find your assigned seats and sit down!" he said. "Hurry, hurry!"

The students did as they were bidden, showing no protest. The arrangement of the seats let everyone see everyone else. Makoto looked down at his seat and saw that it had an electronic screen attached to it. Presumably, the class would vote for whom they think to be the blackened with this. He also noticed that the stands appeared to be movable, but he could not fathom why they were so. The only stand that no one stood at was at Kyoko's left and was filled in by a post that showed a picture of the victim, his face covered with a red X. Doubtless that was where he would stand if someone else had been killed instead.

Mondo Owada, the Ultimate Bike Gang Leader, was the killing game's first victim. Makoto had not liked the man that much, but he still thought that there had been a chance that they could get along well and become friends, too. However brusque and prone to violence he might have been, Makoto believed that he had been a mostly good man at heart. And now, he was dead, and the man's killer was here in this courtroom, hiding among them. However many times that he wished that this were not true, right now, if he wanted to live, Makoto must find the killer.

All the classmates looked at each other, suspicion etched onto their eyes. It was clear that for most of them, there were no such things as friends. All the friendships and connections that they had made with each other were no more. Right now, they would do anything to find the blackened, even if it meant exposing someone whom they thought to be a dear classmate.

And thus began the first class trial.

* * *

**And that's the investigation. Sorry that it took quite a while for me to update this; on top of things going on in my life, I also have been working on my other fic. Anyway, I think I've left enough clues for you to piece together most of what happened. As you can see, it's based on DR1's first case, but I've changed a few details and made it a bit more complex. Looking back at it now, I find DR1's first case to be really, really simple, even for first case standards, to the point that most of it can be figured out during the investigation.**


End file.
